


Weak and Powerless

by peacensafety



Series: Valhalla [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMFStiles!, Creature!Stiles, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Oh my god so much angst, uncomfortable situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:04:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 55,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacensafety/pseuds/peacensafety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has to remember part of his past that he would really like to ignore until it went away, thank you very much. If people would just let him keep ignoring it, it would be great. Now that there's an Alpha pack, and secret agents, and his dad is keeping secrets from him, and why exactly is Derek hanging around so much now? Ignoring it is going to be just impossible to do. Thank God his shrink lets him have as much anti-anxiety medication as he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles sat in the corner of his room, his door and window locked, and just let himself go. Tears streaked down his cheeks as he tried to hold his head together, silent sobs escaped his mouth, and air seemed to evacuate the room as he gasped for it over and over. This was a bad one, but Stiles knew it would be over soon. He had already taken his Alprazolam, and it would be moments before it kicked it and turned him back into a zombie who acted happy all the time. He knew he could do it, knew the precise amount of Adderall to take in order for that persona to come back, and he employed his pharmaceutical know-how often and without thought to consequence. That alone could drive him insane for days.

He almost gasped in relief as he felt the Alprazolam hitting him, the seductive tendrils of apathy crawling first through his fingertips, up his nerve endings and down through his chest. It was a warm spidersilk draping itself over his mind and closing off the fireworks that the panic had caused in his mind and leaving him to clean up the aftermath of war that his body had been carrying on with his soul. 

Fucking panic attacks. God, he hated those things. 

He made sure that the drug had settled into him good before he slowly stumbled across his floor to grab the box of tissues off the shelf of his headboard. He mopped at his face, but he figured it wouldn’t matter too much because he was home alone. He forced himself to go to the bathroom and run clean, cold water over the swelling of his eyes and the redness of his nose. He glared at himself in the mirror, hating that he couldn’t control himself like every other person on the planet. Well, except for his werewolf friends, but they had a legitimate excuse. The whole werewolfy thing had to count for something, didn’t it?

Stiles started having panic attacks the day of his mother’s funeral. He remembered her coffin being lowered into the ground, and the sound of the first chunk of dirt hitting the hollowed wooden lid made him lose it completely. Knowing that it was his fault that she was there, knowing it was because he had waited for someone else to take care of his problems had made him want rage, made him want to die. His father had to have paramedics take him away from the grave site because he couldn’t even look his son in the eye at that time, and he had panicked so badly that they had to give him an injection so that he wouldn’t hurt any of them. Now he could honestly say that Alprazolam had been his oldest friend. It was just a lot easier to tell people that everything was due to his ADHD and Adderall intake than it was to explain his panic attacks.

He stared at himself in the mirror. He hated looking himself in the eyes after this, hated the guilt that stared back at him. He wondered what exactly he could do in order to distract himself, and he wished that Scott would call him with another problem soon so that he could just stop thinking.

The fine squeaking of a fingernail at his bedroom window seemed to be the answer to his prayer. Stiles expected Scott to be on the other side, so when he unlocked it and stared into Jackson’s big blue eyes he was absolutely shocked. 

“Jackson?” Stiles heard his voice squeaking. Good, that was normal, normal teenage boys’s voices squeaked occasionally. That made him feel better, although he saw that Jackson was trying not to smirk at it.

“Stilinski,” Jackson said. He looked uncomfortable on Stiles’s roof for a moment. “So… can I come in?”

Stiles nodded, stepping back to allow the newly made werewolf into his room. Jackson came in and looked around, and Stiles realized that Jackson had never been in his house before.

Jackson actually kind of looks uncomfortable, and he glances from the bed to the chair in front of Stiles’s computer desk a few times before Stiles moves in and sits on his bed, patting the area next to him where Scott normally sat. Jackson takes a seat, but he doesn’t look any more comfortable than he did only moments earlier.

“What’s up?” Stiles asked.

Jackson looked over at Stiles for a moment, and his face moved like he was surprised that he remembered why he was there. He slumps a little, “Lydia said you were good to talk to.”

Stiles was a little surprised. He doesn’t say anything though, just waits in silence. He actually can be quiet, regardless of what anyone has to say. 

“I’m really powerful now,” Jackson said.

Stiles was a little confused, because… yeah, werewolves are powerful. If Stiles hadn’t taken his Alprazolam, he probably would have even said something to that effect, but with the anti-anxiety drug coursing through his veins he manages to keep quiet.

“I killed a lot of people, Stiles,” Jackson said, and his voice broke this time. 

Stiles was shocked to find himself with armfuls of teenage werewolf, sobbing in his arms like he was a broken thing, Jackson’s arms were around him as he soaked Stiles’s shoulder in tears and snot and drool. Jackson is literally losing his shit, and Stiles doesn’t know exactly what to do. He’s grateful though, grateful that Jackson trusts him enough to do this around him because he knows that there probably isn’t anyone else in Jackson’s life that he can appear weak around like this. He’s established himself as too much of a dick to everyone else, but he knew that Stiles was fighting for him the entire time he was a kamina and so that’s probably what made him feel safe enough to do this.

Stiles lays Jackson back in his bed, and continues to hold him as Jackson cries himself out. He gets up after a while to get a cool washcloth out of the bathroom and wipes the boy’s face for him, still not saying anything at all.

“You’re the only one that doesn’t look at me like I’m completely evil,” Jackson said. “Why is that, when you know what I’ve done?”

“You weren’t in control, you were used,” Stiles said. “It isn’t your fault. Your mind was raped by Matt and Gerard, and you aren’t responsible for any of that.”

“But I did…”

“Nothing,” Stiles said. “You did nothing. You’re still a good man, Jackson. You still…” and Stiles swallows a little here, but he figures that Jackson understands, “love Lydia, you’re still the co-captain of the Lacrosse team that’s won state, you’re still you. Nothing is going to change that.”

“But when I… shift, when I wolf out, I just want to kill…”

“That’s still not you,” Stiles explains patiently. “That’s the wolf inside of you. You choose not to kill; you chose not to use that power. The power doesn’t define a man, Jackson,” Stiles knows this from experience, “only you can chose who you’re going to become.”

Jackson made a strange sound in Stiles’s pillow, one that could be a giggle or a snort. “Thanks, I think.”

“Mmm…” Stiles said. He knows his advice is a little cheesy and a little bit naïve, but he figures that sometimes when someone is hurting that’s what they need. He would pay for it, pay to let someone just have enough courtesy to lie to him in the same way, just once. “Go to sleep, Jackson.”

“If you tell anyone about this…”

“You’ll rip my throat out with your teeth, you werewolves are all the same,” Stiles agrees, letting the Alprazolam finish its job and let him completely lose consciousness.

Jackson’s still there in the morning when they wake up, but they don’t say anything to each other. Jackson uses Stiles’s toothpaste and his own finger to brush his teeth, and Stiles cooks him breakfast. Stiles watches from the front door as Jackson leaves in his Porche, and then Stiles climbs into his Jeep to drive to school.

The worst thing about Alprazolam is that he doesn’t quite feel as connected to everything as he normally does. He isn’t tired, but he isn’t exactly one hundred percent aware. The relatively low dosage of Adderall that he takes doesn’t exactly help matters either, and so he walks around school all day like his head is trapped in a goldfish bowl. It’s not something he particularly enjoys at all. Anything, though, anything is better than thinking at this point. 

He isn’t exactly sure what set him off last night. He knows that there was something that he should remember, but his mind keeps shying away from whatever he saw or thought he saw… Stiles makes himself stop thinking again. He concentrates on Economics, because even though it’s the end of the school year and even if he flunked the last test he would still get an A in the class, Stiles wants to make sure that it isn’t an A-. That could potentially bring down his GPA, and his GPA is ridiculous and his own and pretty much the lifeblood of his sanity at this point. 

Scott spends most of lunch whining about how much he misses Allison and how big of a dick Derek is, and Jackson and Lydia aren’t sitting with them anymore. They’re across the cafeteria at the cool kids’ table, making out like they’re the only two people on the planet. Stiles figures that its time to get a new crush because he would feel guilty if he got between them now. Especially since Jackson had just spent last night crying all over Stiles like a big baby. 

Erica, Boyd, and Isaac were sitting across the cafeteria, staring at Stiles and Scott in that creepy manner of theirs. Stiles kind of hated it, if kind of could describe the fact that even with all his medication their gazes made shivers ride up and down his spine. He stared at his food for a moment, took the portable stuff, and then stood up. “I’m finishing lunch in the library,” he said, cutting Scott off mid-sentence.

Scott stared at him, shocked. Stiles had never done anything like that to him before, never ditched or stopped listening or shown him any sort of disrespect like he had just done. “Stiles,” Scott started to say, but Stiles was tired. He walked his tray over to the trash can and dumped most of his food, and he walked off to the library.

He hid himself amongst the shelves as far back as he could get, pulling out a random reference book and opening the page while he munched on an apple. He pulled out a set of headphones and attached them to his ears as he stared at what turned out to be an old copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, volume H. 

It was the staring, Stiles decided. There had been two men in suits at the grocery yesterday when he stopped to get food for dinner that night. They were staring at him, and at first Stiles had decided he was being paranoid but they stayed at the other end of the aisle and followed him across the store. Stiles pretended that he didn’t see them, carried on and had his earphones in place even though he turned the music off. He went to the check-out counter, bought a pack of gum to go along with the groceries, loaded everything into his Jeep calmly and then left, obeying all traffic laws on his way home. He waited to panic until he was in his house.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened. It wasn’t the only time, but Stiles wouldn’t, couldn’t let himself think about that. That way lay madness and self-hatred.

He had no idea why they started following him, he remembered. It had started a few weeks after his mother’s funeral: two men in suits who would just watch him. It was a little creepy when he looked out the window to find them standing in his front yard when he was thirteen, to be honest, but he didn’t call his dad home from the precinct. Later that year, they had showed up and stared at him during a convocation at his school. When he was fourteen, they had showed up six times, and once a month when he was fifteen. They were all random events, and every single time it was a different pair of men. But they would stare at him.

Stiles had researched paranoia, because he honestly thought that was the problem. He thought that maybe he was manifesting them out of his guilt, or that he was having a psychotic break, or that he was developing schizophrenia. He still hadn’t sworn any of those possibilities off, but it was weird and it was strange and now he had a secret that he needed to protect. 

He couldn’t let anyone find out that there were werewolves in Beacon Hills. He knew that they would capture or kill all of them, because guys in suits just meant government agencies in his mind. It wasn’t like there was another possibility available to him. Besides the mental disorder route, and Stiles wasn’t about to hang up his hat just yet.

He got a hold of himself, and then looked up to find Derek Hale’s pale eyes staring at him from about two feet away. Stiles didn’t startle, just closed Volume H and reshelved it. He pulled the earphones out and turned off his MP3 player, and stared back at Derek. “What?”

“You smell like Jackson,” Derek stated.

Stiles wasn’t in the mood. He thunked his head back against the bookcase, and just stared at Derek.

“Look this symbol up for me,” Derek said, thrusting a piece of paper into Stiles’s lap.

“Look this symbol up for me, please,” Stiles said, uncrumpling the piece of paper.

Derek sighed like Stiles had asked him to wash dishes for him or something. “Look this symbol up for me, please. Or I’ll rip your…”

“Throat out with my teeth,” Stiles finished for him. Normally, Derek scared him, but Stiles was too drugged out to care at that point. 

Derek glared at him. Stiles was starting to wonder if Derek knew any other way to look at him, and then he decided that he didn’t want to think about that. Ignore it until it went away, that was his mantra, and it was a damn good mantra and it had served him well.

Stiles stared at it. “I don’t have to look it up again,” he said, holding the paper between two fingers in Derek’s general direction. “I’ve already seen it.”

“You have?” Derek asked him. He looked worried, but he also looked like he trusted Stiles to have this information. “Tell me where.”

“Lycans in Medieval Europe. It’s a book written by a monk in the seventeenth century, detailing sightings of various werewolves, especially those centering around Transylvania and Austria.”

“Where did you find a book like that?” Derek asked him.

“We had a copy in our attic, in a trunk of my mom’s things. She used to love watching horror movies with me,” Stiles whispered.

Derek understood without being asked that this was a touchy subject, and Stiles appreciated that. He was quiet for a minute, and then he looked back up at Stiles. “What did the book have to say?”

“There was a pack of abnormally strong werewolves around the area of former Wallachia who terrorized the town there for centuries. The monk investigated multiple murders, especially in the homes of beautiful and young men and women, or men and women who were exceptional in some way. They would pop up every twenty to thirty years, brutally kill five or six different people, and disappear. That symbol was found on the doorway of whatever town leader was in charge before the murders happened.”

Derek paled. “How reliable is this book?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles said. “It’s a copy of a copy of a manuscript. Mom said it was given to her as a joke when she was a teenager by a relative of hers from Poland.”

“Can I see it?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, won’t do you much good though,” Stiles shrugged. Derek seemed to be thrown off by Stiles complete and total apathy, because normally Stiles would be asking a million questions. Too bad, Derek, Stiles thought, I’ve got my own problems to worry about now. 

“Why not?”

Stiles kind of smiled. “How good is your Polish?”

“What, you speak Polish now?” Derek asked, surprised. 

“Umiem mowic po polsku,” Stiles said, “But usually only with my mom’s parents, now. On the phone.”

Derek stared at him. “Why didn’t I know that?”

“The things you don’t know about me, Derek, could fill libraries,” Stiles said, leaning his head back against the shelf again. “I mean, you’ve never even asked me what my name is.”

Derek kept staring at Stiles, and Stiles just picked up his bag and left. He had a class to get to.

Scott was still put out that Stiles had left him alone in the cafeteria, but Stiles just didn’t care at that point. Stiles stared at the board, ignoring the fact that Scott was ignoring him, and then he just couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed his bag and walked out in the middle of class, ignoring the teacher calling his name, and he walked out of school, ignoring the other adults who were calling him. He briefly wondered if anyone actually even knew his name anymore, but he figured that it was a very low possibility.

He drove to the cemetery where his mother was buried. He sat down on her grave and stared at her headstone, written in English and Polish and Russian. “Mama,” Stiles whispered, touching the rough parts where the letters had been carved out. “Mama, I’m so sorry,” he hung his head and let shame fill him. It was his fault. Everything was his fault. She had been gone for four years, and every single day he knew that it was his fault.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really didn't expect so many people to read the first chapter of this, otherwise I would have fixed all the verb tenses and stuff. Wow! Thank y'all so much! 
> 
> Please, if anyone sees any errors, please tell me about them. I fixed the Polish in the first chapter, so I hope it flows better to my bilingual readers now. Thanks for pointing that out! I really appreciate it! I'm probably going to need some more help in the future, especially if any of y'all speak Russian. Apparently, Google Translate is not the go-to resource that I should be depending on. Like I told them, I only speak two languages, and since one of them is near extinct it's not going to help me a whole lot with the story. 
> 
> I hope you continue to read, and I really appreciate the comments!

One of the best things about having Scott as a best friend was that he was dumb. Stiles didn’t classify this as a bad thing all the time, but when he could successfully explain away his behavior with the excuse of a missed dosage of Adderall and Scott not only dropped the subject entirely but said that he understood, well… Stiles was supremely grateful his best friend was a moron.

Scott spent most of lunch talking about Lacrosse practice, and how Jackson had been a dick to him the entire time after he wouldn’t tell Jackson where Stiles was. He went onto other subjects, but he interrupted himself mid-Allison to casually mention that Derek had invited them over that night for ‘Werewolf Training.’

“What.” Stiles said. “Me too?”

“He said he had some ideas for you,” Scott said with a stupid grin on his face.

“He is aware that I am not actually a werewolf, nor do I play one on TV?” Stiles asked.

“He said that he thought you might benefit from some weapons training,” Scott laughed. “I thought it would be funny.”

Stiles laughed with Scott. “He thinks he needs to show me how to use a gun? Have you told him my dad is the Sherriff?”

“C’mon,” Scott cajoled, “You should at least come so Derek doesn’t concentrate on proving how much better his pack is than mine.” 

Stiles thought for a moment. Yeah, he could see where Scott was coming from, because Derek could easily turn their little exercise into a display of why Scott needed to join Derek’s pack. Stiles didn’t want that to happen, because he knew as soon as it did Scott wouldn’t need to be his friend anymore. Dumb as Scott could be, they had been friends since he could remember, and Stiles really didn’t want to lose him. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Good. I needed a ride,” Scott said, smiling that dumb smile of his even when Stiles used it as an excuse to kick him under the cafeteria table.

School ended uneventfully. Fortunately, even though Stiles walked out halfway through yesterday, none of his teachers counted marks off for him after they had a hushed conversation before class. Thank God his 504 plan listed that there were going to be days when he needed to leave campus, and thank God that his shrink had thought to include it on his list of recommendations. His teachers all expressed a wish that he would at least write them a note so that they could tell his dad where he had gone, and that they were proud to see that he didn’t misuse the excuse on a regular basis. 

Stiles went to Lacrosse practice, and he was surprised to see that Jackson visibly relaxed when he stepped into the locker room. He continued to give Greenberg shit about something, and he said some lightly abusive things to Scott, but the physical difference in his demeanor was beyond strange. Even Danny noticed, and he kept glancing back and forth between Stiles and Jackson a few times before they went out to the field.

“What happened between you and Jackson?” Danny asked Stiles.

“I have no idea. I feel kind of neglected, he hasn’t tried to hurt my feelings once today,” Stiles said.

Danny smirked at him, but he smiled really pretty so Stiles figured that was okay. Danny looked at Stiles for a moment, and then his face got really serious. “You know I’d tell you if something was wrong with Scott, right?” he asked in a low voice.

Uh-oh. Was this the ‘So your best friend has turned into a werewolf but you don’t know how to make him come clean?’ conversation? Were there even conversations like that? “Um…” Stiles stammered a bit. “See Danny…”

Danny gave him a look that was somewhere between sympathetic to the fact that Stiles had to keep a secret and bothered by the fact that Stiles knew something about his best friend that he didn’t. “Jackson said that we were all going out to the woods tonight. I just wanted to know if that has anything to do with how weird he’s been lately.”

“Yes,” Stiles answered him. “It has everything to do with how weird he’s been lately.”

Danny nodded his head. “That’s… well, not exactly comforting…”

“Danny,” Stiles said, “nothing about this situation is good,” he looked into Danny’s eyes and he let Danny see that Stiles didn’t like keeping secrets from him.

It was good enough for Danny. “Thanks Stiles,” he said, and he squeezed Stiles’s forearm before they went and ran around the field with the other boys.

Stiles kept half of his mind of Lacrosse, but he really wondered if he should go to Derek’s tonight. Not that he didn’t think that hanging out with a bunch of werewolves and having access to guns was going to be the most safest thing ever, or that he didn’t think that hanging out to make sure that he didn’t lose Scott as a best friend was important, but he was pretty sure that if something happened his dad would find out and quite possibly kill him for agreeing to be in this situation. He sighed. Most kids had to worry about the dangers of teenage drinking and underage sex. Stiles got to contemplate werewolves and deadly weapons. If he had his druthers, he’d probably choose the drinking and sex. Even though he wasn’t getting any of the latter in any case.

Stiles sighed, and was knocked down by Greenberg. Jackson helped him up and shoved Greenberg, telling him to watch where he was going. Scott and Stiles stared at Jackson, their jaws dropping to the grass as Jackson walked away from them.

“That was weird,” Scott was really good at stating the obvious, Stiles had to give him that.

Practice ended and soon they were in Stiles’s Jeep, The Pixies screaming about losing their minds or something like that. Scott waxed eloquent about the pain of missing Allison some more, wondering if he was giving her enough space or if he should try and do something to help her decide to come back to him. Stiles told him he should back off for a while and let her miss him as much as he did her before he ruined it all by crowding her. Scott figured that was good advice, and Stiles wondered why he wouldn’t listen any other time he said something. It would have saved them both a lot of pain.

Stiles parked his car in front of Derek’s burnt out house, staring at the Porsche and the Camaro and the Range Rover already parked there. “Why is Argent’s car here?”

Scott paused, again mid-Allison, and stared at the vehicle with dread and longing. “Do you think that Allison is here?”

“Let’s go find out,” Stiles said, tucking his keys in the visor of the Jeep. He was relatively certain that no one all the way out here was going to steal it, and depending on what type of weapons training Derek had decided on there was no telling what might fall out of his pockets. He didn’t want to search the woods for his keys at the end of the day.

It was a weird gathering behind Derek’s house, to say the least. Danny couldn’t stop staring at everyone around him, for one. Isaac, Boyd, and Erica felt no need to reign in their energy and kept wrestling in ways that just simply weren’t human although they didn’t wolf out once, for the sake of Danny’s sanity, Stiles supposed. Derek was glowering next to Mr. Argent. Lydia and Allison stood together near Jackson and Danny, whispering to each other about whatever girls whispered about. 

Stiles and Scott stood at the edge of the backyard, waiting for someone to acknowledge them. They were trespassing on Derek’s territory, and until they really knew what this night was going to be about Stiles figured that they should tread cautiously. 

Derek looked up almost as soon as they got there. He stared at Scott for a moment and then nodded his head, and Stiles and Scott moved forward together. They walked side by side into the backyard, which was covered in rubble and dirt. There was a small table set up with targets behind it, and Stiles could see pistols and rifles laying down on it, lined neatly up in a row.

“We’re about to be attacked,” Derek announced without preamble. “We aren’t ready for this, and there is no way for us to survive without banding together.”

“What?” Danny asked.

“It’s true,” Chris Argent said. “Derek called me after speaking with his Uncle Peter and Stiles,” Chris tripped over Stiles’s name as if he was confused about why he had gotten consulted before himself, but he noticed immediately that when the other kids heard Stiles’s name they seemed to pay more attention, “and we’re pretty sure…”

“That a band of Alpha werewolves are landing on the doorstep of Beacon Hills?” Dr. Deaton stepped out from the other side of Derek’s house, where Stiles could have sworn that it was too burnt out and shell-like for anyone to hide. 

“What?” Danny asked.

“Who called you?” Derek asked, and he didn’t sound mad or anything, just kind of curious.

Dr. Deaton looked over at Scott, who kind of smiled. “Sorry,” Scott said to Derek, “I probably should have said something to you.”

“No,” Derek said, shaking his head a little, “I should have included Dr. Deaton myself.”

“What?” Danny asked.

“First of all,” Derek said, “we’re going to have to train together. This does not mean that anyone here is obligated to join my pack. That option is open, but it is not going to be an end game in this situation. It would be safer, we would be more powerful if it happened…”

Peter Hale walked out of the woods and cleared his throat a little bit.

Derek frowned, “But it isn’t why we’re here. I need to make sure that everyone knows how to fight a werewolf pack.”

Lydia scowled at Peter Hale, but to be honest Stiles was too, at this point. Chris Argent looked like he would have liked to pick up one of the guns off the table and point it at Peter, and Peter just smiled at everyone like they were there for his birthday party. 

“I figured that the humans here could defend themselves with guns, because they don’t have fangs or claws and this is going to be a very physical fight, make no mistake. This pack has been fighting as a group for centuries, and we can barely get along with each other. They definitely have the advantage, although this is our home turf and we know it better than they do.” Derek continued talking, and Stiles was actually pretty impressed that Derek knew how to say more than one sentence at a time.

“What?” Danny asked.

“So Chris is going to show all of the humans here how to load and shoot a gun. So Stiles, Lydia, Dr. Deaton, Danny, why don’t you walk over with Chris here…” Scott snickered, but Derek ignored him. “So Chris can show you how to use a weapon,” Derek said between clenched teeth.

“What?” Danny asked. 

“I don’t need Argent,” Stiles said. 

“Stiles, you need to know…”

“I don’t have a permit to carry, what’s the point of me learning?” Stiles asked him.

“Stiles, you are in danger more than anyone else…” Derek said.

“Stiles really doesn’t need Argent,” Scott shrugged.

“Let me be the judge of that,” Chris interrupted smoothly.

“What?” Danny asked.

“Stiles, why don’t you be first?” Chris asked, and he looked like he kind of dreaded Stiles getting near any of the weapons at all.

Stiles looked at Scott, who wasn’t bothering to hide hid giggles at this point. “Why don’t you let Argent show you how to handle a gun?” he guffaws, and he had to sit on the ground because his body was shaking too hard.

Stiles glared at Derek, because this was just one more thing that he didn’t bother to find out about him. He marched over to the table, where Argent had left all the guns disassembled, and without looking away from Derek’s eyes he assembled and loaded one of Argent’s Desert Eagles, aimed at the targets without looking at them with his arm completely straight, and unloaded the clip into the bull’s eye. He moved forward to a double barreled shot-gun and repeated the process, pausing every other bullet to reload, only he did have to turn his body to aim at the other targets, and he hit the bull’s eye each and every time before looking back at Derek. “Am I done now?” He disassembled the weapons in record time and placed everything back exactly where he had found it.

“What?” Danny said, but this time he sounded a little weak.

Dr. Deaton looked like he was muttering something under his breath, and even Allison looked impressed. Derek looked shocked.

“My dad is the Sheriff,” Stiles said, biting off the end of each word, as if he were explaining that the sky was blue to a very slow four year old. 

Dr. Deaton’s head jerked up, “Staliński,” he whispered, and Stiles’s head jerked around to look at him, surprised. No one else noticed though, because they were all staring at Stiles like he had suddenly grown two heads. No one else had probably heard the slightly different inflection that he had pronounced Stiles’s last name with, but Stiles did.

Stiles stood back, and this time he looked at Chris Argent, who was studying him as if Stiles were a type of bug that he had never seen before. “Can I go now?” Stiles asked, looking back at Derek. “I’ve got homework.”

Derek paused before he gave him a short jerk of his head in the affirmative.

“I’m going with Stiles,” Scott said.

“No,” Stiles said, which surprised everyone. “No, Derek has a point. You need to work with him on this, because he’s going to know things that you don’t. You need to stay here. Jackson?”

Jackson had already been looking at Stiles with something different in his eye. Was that what respect looked like? “Yeah?”

“Give Scott a ride home, will you?” Stiles asked him.

“Yeah,” Jackson said.

Stiles left just as Danny was asked, “What?” one more time.

Dr. Deaton left the group of werewolves to walk Stiles to his car. “Where did you learn that?”

“My dad,” Stiles shrugged, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets as they neared his Jeep.

“Where is he from again?” Dr. Deaton asked Stiles.

Stiles paused. “He and my mom met in Arizona,” he said, looking up at the sky. “Dad doesn’t talk too much about the past.” That was pushing it, Stiles knew. His dad didn’t talk about the past at all, unless Stiles could pour about a fifth of whiskey down his throat first. Even then, the most he had ever gotten out of him was that he missed Stiles’s mother. 

“What was your mother’s name, Stiles?” Dr. Deaton asked him gently.

“Agnieszka,” Stiles whispered. 

“That’s a beautiful name,” Dr. Deaton told him seriously. “You must miss her.”

Stiles immediately felt every wall he possessed inside of himself slamming down, hard. He swallowed, trying to keep the panic away from himself. “Yes,” he said honestly, and his throat felt raw. “They used to call her Pela. It was her nickname.”

Dr. Deaton smiled at him. “Was she from Poland, then?”

“She was American,” Stiles shrugged his shoulders. “My grandparents are Polish.”

“Did your dad take her last name, when they married?”

“Why?” Stiles asked. “I mean, no, Stilinski is dad’s last name, but why are you asking?”

“I’m simply curious. I realized that I don’t know a lot about you.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “You know enough about me to teach me magic,” he stated. “Why was that? Why didn’t you just do it?” Stiles realized that the vet also knew enough to say Staliński, but he didn’t seem to be owning up to that, either.

Dr. Deaton’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, but Stiles noticed it. “How did your mother die, Stiles?”

Stiles could remember it, three beats. Pop, pop, pop. He heard it in his head, those three sounds that had ended it all, had put Stiles’s childhood to rest.

He stumbled back from Dr. Deaton, blindly groping at air that served no purchase, unable to believe that this man, this almost perfect stranger, was the first person to ever ask Stiles that question. He felt betrayed by everyone he knew, and he wasn’t mature enough to blame them instead of the man standing in front of him. 

Dr. Deaton looked concerned, and he reached out to steady Stiles, but it was too late. “Stay away from me!” Stiles shouted. “Just stay the fuck away from me!”

Scott was there in a heartbeat, followed closely by Derek and Jackson and then everyone else. Stiles stared at them blindly, gasping for breath, struggling to come to grips with himself. “Fuck you,” he spat at Dr. Deaton. He turned around and with whatever dignity he could find he walked back to his Jeep and drove away, leaving everyone behind him.

He wasn’t a monster, he repeated to himself. He wasn’t a monster. He knew he wasn’t. What he had done, what he was capable of, he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t a monster.

“Stiles?” he heard his dad saying as he walked blindly through his house up to his room. He didn’t even remember parking his Jeep, or driving from Derek’s house. “Stiles!”

He hid in the corner of his room again, hating that corner more than anything else in his life. He gasped, the silent choking sobs coming back to him, air vanishing from the room, and this time he couldn’t reach his pills. He wanted to move, wanted to get to that little orange bottle that would make it all go away, but he couldn’t remember where he had put them the last time and even if he did he couldn’t make himself move.

He was vaguely aware that his dad had busted down the door and was staring at him. He flinched away from being touched, the panic growing at the thought of anyone near him. “D-d-don’t touch me!” he shouted.

His dad was holding that bottle, shaking some of the pills out into his hand, and he forced one down Stiles’s throat, forced him to swallow it dry. He wrapped Stiles up in a blanket, brand new, no memories associated with it, and sat on his bed and waited for Stiles to breathe again. “They aren’t getting any better, are they?” 

“I’m fine,” Stiles gasped out, finally.

“You’re not. You’re not fine, Stiles. This was a full bottle just a month ago, and it’s already half gone.” 

“I’m fine,” Stiles insisted.

His dad sat on the bed a little longer. “Go to sleep, Stiles.”

Stiles nodded, and he fell on the bed without washing his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles was woken up that morning by someone sitting on his bed. “G’way, I’m sleeping, my alarm hasn’t gone off yet,” he mumbled into his pillow.

“Stiles,” Derek said, “Your alarm hasn’t gone off. You didn’t show up for school. Jackson was worried.”

“So… you came over to check up on me?” Stiles asked. “I suppose that makes sense, except for the part where Jackson actually cares that I’m not in school and you and I don’t trust each other, remember?”

Derek looks vaguely ashamed and a little surprised that Stiles remembered that little comment. Stiles isn’t surprised. He remembers almost everything. All the time. He has perfected the art of ignoring, however, and that’s hard to do when Derek Hale is sitting on his bed while he’s still in it like he belongs there or something.

“How did you get in here, anyway? I thought I was locking my window at night again…” Stiles frowned as he tried to remember if he locked it last night. Too bad it was hard to remember a lot of things during a panic attack. So he remembered most everything except for the times when he had panic attacks. It was not a huge loss, they must be mostly boring anyway, he tried to convince himself of that. Sometimes he thought that it was possible that during his panic attacks he remembered absolutely everything, but he doesn’t want to think about that with Derek in the same room, especially since Derek can smell certain emotions. “My pills are in my desk,” Stiles gestured towards the almost only other piece of furniture in his room like Derek couldn’t possibly figure out which one was his desk. 

“Your dad let me in,” Derek said, and he calmly walked over to pull out the top drawer of Stiles’s desk. His eyes widened at what he found there. “Stiles, what is all this for?” and he actually sounded concerned.

“I don’t trust you,” Stiles said, “why should I tell you? Now give me my pill.”

Derek slowly pulled out one of the bottles. “Which one?”

“Alacazam,” Stiles whimpered. The attack from last night hasn’t gone away completely, and the fact that Derek might be able to smell what’s happening inside of his brain is starting to set that aura off around him. “Alprazolam, alacazam,” Stiles repeated himself.

“What are they for?” Derek asked, and Stiles could see that his nose was twitching. Before too long, Stiles wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that he was slowly losing his mind. Derek would have to be able to smell that.

“Please Derek,” Stiles isn’t ashamed to beg, “please just let me have my pill and go away.”

Derek pushed a pill out to the palm of his big hand, but he kept the bottle as he walked over to hand it to Stiles. He read the label, checked the warning label. “This is for... anxiety? Or do you have insomnia?”

“Anxiety,” Stiles said.

“What do you have to be anxious over?” Derek asked him, like the thought that Stiles might not just be a hyperactive kid and he might actually have more than one standard operating procedure had never occurred to him before.

Stiles glared at him. “Libraries, Derek,” he closed his eyes for a few moments, hoping the pill would take effect soon, and that he doesn’t have to remind Derek of their conversation in the actual library. 

“So read me a book,” Derek said, and this time Stiles could tell his teeth were grinding again. So apparently he remembered.

“Sometimes, you have to actually be friends with someone before you find out their deep, dark secrets,” Stiles said. 

“Scott said he didn’t even know why you freaked out last night,” Derek said, “so obviously friendship isn’t a prerequisite to the Stiles Stilinski Library.”

“Sometimes, deep, dark secrets preclude friendship.” 

“Like there’s anything that you could tell me that could possibly make you worse than I am, what I’ve done.”

“What?” Stiles asked, and he wished the pill would make him shut up for once. It wasn’t going to happen soon enough. “What do you think that you’ve done that’s so horrible, Derek? You trusted someone? Yes, you are a terrible monster. Obviously worthy of scorn, ridicule, and shunning by the general society at large. Woe unto Derek, and let him revel in the misery of a broken heart for all of eternity,” Stiles spat. “Fuck off, you have no idea what a monster is. Get the fuck away from me,” Stiles said, and if he hadn’t of just taken that pill he probably could have left Derek alone in his bedroom, but when he tried to stand up he just fell.

Derek caught him, gently as if he were handling something precious. Which Stiles was not, obviously. Stiles was not precious. Stiles was foul and awful and a fucking coward. “Don’t think that this is over,” Derek growled, “just because you are losing consciousness.”

“Fuck…” Stiles was going to get around to finishing that sentence, but the lethargy in his muscles is too much to handle at that point. “Tell me about the Alphas,” he slurred into his pillow, because he didn’t want to keep having Manpain Contests with Derek at this point.

“They graffitied the shit out of my door,” Derek said, and he tucked Stiles back into the sheets, pulling them up around his shoulders. “Uncle Peter told me that they were a pack of Alphas, and you told me that they were old and powerful. Dr. Deaton last night told us that there were eight of them and that they had been together for centuries.”

“Do werewolves live longer than humans?” Stiles asked, but his words were slowly dripping out of his mouth like molasses.

Derek didn’t seem to mind terribly much. “Yes. We live a long time because of our healing abilities, but even centuries is a ridiculously long time to most of us.”

“Wolverine,” Stiles grunts.

“Yeah, kind of like Wolverine, only with better hair and a tad less spandex,” and Derek joked for the first time.

Stiles smiled with his eyes closed, and he really wanted to laugh. “You could pull off spandex,” he told Derek, and he kind of hoped that he was dreaming at this point. He probably was, because he was talking to Derek Hale about Wolverine. And spandex.

“You think about me in spandex?” Derek sounds like he’s about to laugh, and Stiles knows that it’s the Alprazolam because Derek doesn’t laugh, ever. He mostly just threatens Stiles and snaps at him.

“Am now,” Stiles mutters. “You’d look like a comic book character.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Only hot. Way hotter than them. ‘Cause your eyes…”

Derek was quiet then, and Stiles fell back to sleep.

When he woke up again, he was a little dismayed to find that the sun had set and he had slept the entire day away. He woke up, and he groaned because there was a possibility that something had actually crawled into his mouth, soaked up all the saliva, and then took a dump and died in its shit. It was nasty.

Stiles stumbled over to the hallway bathroom and rinsed his mouth out before he could even bring himself to use his toothbrush. He showered and changed into a different pair of pajamas, because he knew that he was just going to be tired after eating and go back to sleep.

His dad was at work, if the lack of the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department car in the driveway was any clue. Stiles set about to making himself some ramen, and he dropped spring onions, soy sauce, and an egg in the pot while it was boiling. He sat at the table and pulled out the note that his dad had left him, and he paused before reading it.

 _Stiles,_  
You’re going back to the doctor. This has gone on for long enough. If you choose to weasel your way out of your appointments, or if you think that you can forge notes like last time, I will have you committed. You are not getting better, despite your assurances to me, and you are not living up to your part of the bargain. Live up to your word son, or I will be forced to take matters into my own hands.  
Eat up, you’re going to school the day after tomorrow.  
Dad

Stiles sighed, and then he cleaned up the kitchen after eating. He took out the trash, and this time those guys in the suits were standing across the street from him. He continued to ignore them though, in favor of stuffing the bags into the metal cans, and calmly walked back to his house.

It didn’t cause him to panic this time, and Stiles briefly wondered if he was all panicked out at this point. He hadn’t had two, or was it three, panic attacks in one week for years now. Stiles glanced at the calendar and realized that tomorrow, November 27th, officially was the day that his mother died five years ago. It was also his seventeenth birthday. He debated briefly if it was also a good day to just tell his dad to commit him.

Stiles decided that it was probably better for Scott’s life expectancy if he weren’t locked up in a straight-jacket for the rest of their high school career. Since Scott meant more to Stiles than anything else in his life at this point because he simply accepted him and never pushed for personal information, Stiles decided that Scott living to be twenty was a good goal for which to strive. Stiles snorted a little to himself. Twenty-one, on the other hand, was probably asking for too much from anyone.

There was a knock at the door, and Stiles moved the curtain aside in his kitchen doorway to see Scott standing there, like he always did on this night, every year for five years. He opened the door, and Scott walked in, followed closely by Jackson and Isaac.

“Hey,” Stiles greeted them, feeling a little weird that Jackson and Isaac were standing in his kitchen. 

“Hey,” Scott said. “We brought your homework. Well, Jackson did, because he has more classes with you, but we just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

Scott, Jackson, and Isaac all invited themselves further into the house and sat at the kitchen table. “Do you need any help? I’ve got my notes here,” Jackson said as he fumbled around in his backpack.

“I already read the book,” Stiles said.

“Which one?” Jackson asked. 

“All of them,” Stiles shrugged, sitting down gingerly at the table across from them.

“Stiles always reads the books during the first two weeks of school,” Scott smiled. “And then he remembers everything that he reads, so he never has to look anything up again. So when we have homework he doesn’t have to waste time looking the answers up.”

“And then Scott copies… or he did, when we had the same classes,” Stiles poked at his friend.

“Everyone has to pass somehow. I just used Stiles,” Scott grinned back at Stiles.

“Well, find someone else to use, otherwise Finstock is going to kick you off the team,” Jackson kicked Scott under the table.

Stiles nodded, but he still couldn’t get over the fact that there were people who were not Scott sitting at his table. “Can I get you guys anything to drink?” Stiles asked them.

“What do you have?” Isaac asked as Stiles walked over to the fridge.

Stiles listed a bunch of drinks, and everyone settled on soda before they got more comfortable around the table. 

They talked like normal human beings, and nothing was said about werewolves or the Alpha or guns, and Stiles was briefly disconcerted by the complete normalness of the situation. Jackson especially seemed completely relaxed, and while he still made asshole comments about everything Scott said, he was respectful towards Isaac and listened when Stiles talked. It weirded Stiles out.

Stiles’s dad came home to find the boys with their books scattered across the kitchen table, and the look on his face was everything that Stiles was feeling inside. Still, it kind of hurt to see that his dad was so shocked to see people who actually wanted to hang out with Stiles, and it made him realize how much his dad was bothered by the fact that Stiles hadn’t been reaching out to anyone at all.

Jackson and Isaac eventually got up to go home, but Scott stayed a little while after they did. Stiles had come to expect Scott to stay the night on this night. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Stiles said, leading the way back up to his room. 

“It’s just that… Dr. Deaton didn’t know why you were freaking out yesterday. He told us he only asked you a few questions…”

“He asked me how my mother died,” Stiles whispered.

Scott was quiet. Scott had never asked before, and Stiles could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t know if he was allowed to ask. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Stiles said, and he flung himself back onto his bed.

“Stiles, I wouldn’t tell anyone…”

“But Allison, and she would tell Lydia, and Lydia would tell everyone…”

“But Stiles, it has to be important. You not talking about it ever has to make it important, because you talk about everything.”

Stiles looked at his dumb best friend, and he wished that Scott were a little bit dumber. 

“Stiles, it’s been five years. No one knows anything. You won’t say a word. Your dad didn’t say a word. When all those FBI agents were running around Beacon Hills, no one said a single word. What happened?”

“Scott,” Stiles said, and for once he wished he was having a panic attack, because it would make it so much better than having to sit through this conversation.

Scott sat on Stiles bed with his back to Stiles, but he reached out and grabbed Stiles’s ankle. He was quiet, in a way that Scott only seemed to know how to be, and Stiles felt himself relaxing. “It doesn’t matter, in the end, Stiles. You are and will always be my friend, no matter what happens or has happened. I know that it’s bad because you won’t talk about it, but when you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

Stiles wanted to protest that not even Scott would be able to handle what he had done, but he wanted more than anything to talk about it, to let himself say something about it, to share the guilt with someone so he didn’t have to carry it around all the time. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He took a deep breath, and he knew that Scott knew he was crying, but he was grateful that Scott didn’t turn around to look at him.

“My mom got shot,” Stiles volunteered. He was still crying silently, but he couldn’t say anything else at all.

Scott made no movement at this announcement. He continued to hold Stiles’s ankle for a long time after that, and Stiles eventually fell asleep, knowing that Scott was in the room keeping watch over him like he had done on this night, every single year for the past five years.

Stiles woke up to find Scott curled up at the bottom of his bed. He glanced over at the clock, and he nudged his best friend with his foot. “Hey, Scott,” Stiles croaked out.

“Mmm…” Scott said. “Is it time for school?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “You gonna make it?”

“Make me breakfast,” Scott whined, and Stiles smiled at his best friend. Some things never changed.

Stiles was downstairs making scrambled eggs and toast for Scott while Scott took a quick shower and pulled on clothing that he left over at Stiles’s house. Stiles grinned at him, and put a plate of eggs on the table in front of him. “Here you go,” Stiles said, “fresh from the Stilinski kitchen.”

Scott smiled as he shoveled the food into his mouth, and Stiles made his own plate before sitting down with a plate of toast in his other hand. The boys ate, and Scott finished before Stiles. “Stiles,” Scott said seriously, “Do you feel so guilty because you’re the one who shot your mom?”

“No,” Stiles said. “I didn’t shoot my mom.”

Scott looked relieved. “It’s not your fault, you know that?”

Stiles stared at Scott, wishing he could believe him. He knew it wasn’t true though, and he continued to eat.

“Stiles,” Scott tried again.

“You should hurry up or you’re going to be late for school,” Stiles said. “Are you going to need a ride?”

“Yeah,” Scott said, grabbing his backpack. “Let’s go.”

Stiles nodded his head, and he followed Scott out to his Jeep. The drive to school was relatively short and not very scenic, but Scott stared out the window to give Stiles some semblance of privacy. Stiles hated having anyone around him at all on this day, of all days, and Scott knew that.

He dropped him off in front of the school building, and then he drove to the grocery store before he drove to the cemetery. Predictably, it started to rain as Stiles got out of his Jeep, clutching a fistful of daisies and yellow tulips. His mother had liked yellow, Stiles remembered.

He put the flowers on the ground in front of the tombstone. He knew his father would be by later, but Stiles liked visiting his mother in the morning. It was a time-share, he thought with some irony, to not let his mother alone on this day.

“Hey mom,” Stiles said in Polish. They had always spoken Polish whenever they were together, like it was a secret code between them. “A lot has happened this year. You’d never believe it, but I know you would have loved it. You know all those monster movies we used to watch? Turns out, werewolves are a real thing, did you know that? I bet you would have loved researching them with me. I bet you would know what to do with these Alphas, too, wouldn’t you?” Stiles talked to his mother, catching her up on everything that had happened that year. He talked for hours and hours, even though it was pouring down rain and it was hard to see the tombstone in front of him. Stiles talked until he was hoarse, and then he got back in his Jeep, and he drove home.


	4. Chapter 4

“Stilinski, I’m going to need you to stay after class,” Coach Finstock told him while everyone else was packing up.

Scott gave Stiles a look, and Stiles shrugged at him. Stiles stood in front of his Economics teacher, who was for some reason teaching Government this semester, and waited.

“You know, my dad used to be the Sheriff of Beacon Hills,” Finstock said to him.

“Yeah? How’d that work out for you?” Stiles asked him.

“It sucked. He was never home, and when he was there was usually a stripper with him. They aren’t real interesting conversation partners, to be honest.”

“Huh,” Stiles said. 

“He told me the night that he hired your dad as a deputy,” Finstock said. “I was still in high school, but I remember your parents coming to town. He tried to hire your mom, too.”

Stiles looked up at him, “She was thinking of joining the force, once I was in middle school. She wanted to stay home with me.”

“She homeschooled you through elementary, didn’t she?” Finstock asked.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, reciting a lie his dad had indoctrinated him with. “My ADHD made school hard, especially in elementary.”

Finstock nodded. “I remember her. She always had a nice word to say to everyone. She was gentle. You kind of remind me of her.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said.

“I also know what day yesterday was,” Finstock continued. “And I’m sorry.”

Stiles nodded again. 

“If you miss another practice, you’re off the team. I’ve had enough of you randomly missing games. I can’t depend on you, and if I can’t depend on you, you can’t be on the team. There’s other boys who want to play who might actually show up once in a while. I’ve cut you slack because I liked your mom, but there has to be a time where she quits becoming an excuse in your life.”

Stiles nodded again. “All right, coach,” he agreed. “No more missing practices and games.”

Finstock nodded. “Good. Excuses aren’t going to get you far in life, Stilinski. Your grades are ridiculous, but colleges are going to want to see that you’ve done something other than study.”

Stiles nodded again. “Got it. Do something that isn’t studying,” he said.

Finstock stared at him for a moment, and then he gestured to the door. “Go away now.”

“Going away now,” Stiles said, hitching his backpack up higher on his shoulder. He turned and left the room, not at all surprised when Scott was next to the door.

Scott looked angry, “I can’t believe he said that to you,” he growled.

Stiles squeezed Scott’s arm. “He doesn’t know what it’s like. He thinks he’s helping. Let’s go.”

Scott looked at him for a while. “How often do you do that?” 

“Do what?”

“Excuse other people for not knowing, for saying shit that has to hurt like hell and excuse them because they just don’t know?”

Stiles looked at his dumb best friend, reevaluating him. “Scott…”

“Do you do that to me?” Scott asked.

“I can’t do this today, Scott. Change the subject. Tell me about Allison.”

Scott stared at Stiles for a while, and then he haltingly started talking about how Argent was letting his daughter go out with him tonight after the pack meeting, and how he was nervous, and then he started talking a mile a minute about how excited he was and how great everything was because he and Allison could start seeing each other again.

“So there’s a pack meeting tonight?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah, do you want to come? Derek said you were welcome, but you didn’t have to come. Dr. Deaton said that he’d like to talk with you again, teach you some more magic, maybe.”

“I think that sounds interesting,” Stiles said. “I wouldn’t mind learning more. I’ve got a thing with my dad, and then I’ll come over.”

“You don’t ever mind learning anything,” Scott said with a smile.

Stiles nodded as they entered the cafeteria, and he was surprised when the entire pack joined them for lunch. Jackson took his place by Stiles’s side, and Stiles was starting to realize that Jackson considered him an actual friend. Danny sat across from Stiles, and he stared a lot. That was a little unnerving. Isaac and Erica and Boyd sat next to Scott, who had Allison on the other side of him, and Lydia sat across from Allison, next to Stiles.

“What have you found out about this Alpha pack, Stiles?” Lydia said.

Stiles glanced around the cafeteria, “We’re talking about this here?”

Lydia looked at him. “Not everyone has werewolf hearing, Stiles. Don’t be so paranoid.”

Stiles looked around the cafeteria again, studying the adults standing around to make sure that the students didn’t kill each other, and when he had recognized all of them he started talking. “I don’t know a whole lot. The book I have didn’t go into a lot of detail. They’re from old Wallachia…”

“Where’s that?” Jackson asked.

“It’s called Romania now,” Stiles told him. “They’re from the area that Vlad Tepes III ruled…”

“You mean Dracula?” Erica asked.

“Yeah, Dracula…”

“He’s a story book character,” Isaac said. He paused, “Isn’t he?”

“The story is based off of a ruler named Vlad Tepes III,” Stiles told him. “He was the only thing that stood between the Ottoman Turks, who were a Muslim kingdom, and the rest of Christian Europe. He was a military genius, and he employed fear because his troops were outnumbered almost a thousand to one. Part of his military training happened when he was held hostage by the Turks with his younger brother Radu, also called The Beautiful, as insurance for good behavior from their father. When they escaped though, and Vlad took his father’s throne, Vlad employed other members of the Order of the Dragon to protect his kingdom, and he used spikes to impale his captured enemies and left them out to intimidate the invading armies.”

“The Order of the Dragon?” Lydia asked.

“An ancient group whose members vowed to protect Europe from Muslim influence,” Stiles recited from memory.

“So these werewolves are from the area that Dracula ruled?” Boyd asked.

“Yes,” Stiles said. “There are a few books that hinted that Tepes employed dark magic to turn men into beasts as personal body guards, and that part of the reason that he was so successful was that his personal honor guard was made up entirely of these beasts.”

“You think he used werewolves,” Scott said.

“It sounds logical,” Stiles shrugged his shoulders. “As logical as anything else that’s happened here in the past year.”

“So you think this Alpha pack are descendants of Dracula’s personal guard?” Isaac asked him.

“Either that, or they are Dracula’s personal guard,” Stiles shrugged his shoulders. “Derek told me that werewolves don’t age the same way as humans.”

“We’re going to die,” Erica whined.

“No we aren’t,” Stiles said. “We’re going to stick together, and we’re going to protect each other. No one else is dying,” Stiles glared at all of them. “Derek’s right, we have to be a team. That’s the only way we’re going to survive this.”

“I agree with Stiles,” Scott said. “I’ll watch all of your backs, and you watch mine.”

“Agreed,” Allison said. Everyone else chimed in with their agreements, everyone but Boyd, who sat looking at Stiles.

“How do you know all of this?” he asked him.

Stiles shrugged. “I read a lot of books.”

“What would possess you to read a book on ancient Eastern European history?” Boyd asked. “That’s not normal.”

Stiles stared at Boyd. Why was he the one asking this question? “It was laying around one day. I read it.”

“Stiles remembers everything that he reads,” Scott said happily, because he didn’t understand what Boyd was really asking.

“One day, you’re going to come clean with us,” Boyd said, “but until then, I’ll watch your back. Until this is over, and then you’re going to talk.”

“No,” Stiles said, standing up. “I’m not.” He left the cafeteria and went to sit in his next class. He and Lydia were the only ones allowed to work with each other in math, because the teacher was tired of all the other kids cheating off of them, but she had a few more questions that Stiles was a little more comfortable in answering. He got more comfortable as the day went on, and then he waved good-bye to everyone and drove to the station where his dad was waiting.

He walked into the office and stared at his dad for a few moments. He seemed to be staring at something on his desk, so Stiles waited a few moments before he walked in. “Hey dad,” Stiles greeted him.

“Stiles,” his dad said, like he was still thinking about something else.

“We going shooting today?” Stiles asked.

“I’m getting recertified soon, might as well get some practice in,” his dad said, and he walked over to the gun cabinet on the other side of the room to pull out some guns. 

Stiles saw an old book on his dad’s desk wrapped in a brown leather cover. It looked really dusty and badly used, and in black, burnt letters he saw the name “Staliński” on the cover. He glanced at his dad once before he swiped the book and shoved it into his hoodie, zipping his coat up quickly before his dad had seen what he had done. 

They went shooting, and Stiles debated on telling his dad that he wasn’t going to have to talk to the counselor after all. He was making friends, as suddenly and surprisingly quick as it had been. Then he realized that he was going to have to tell his dad everything. He took a deep breath, and then he said, “Dad?”

His dad didn’t really say a word, just made a little grunting sound as he continued to shoot.

“Dad, what if I were to tell you that something weird is happening in Beacon Hills?”

“It wouldn’t really be that surprising,” his dad said, and he reloaded the rifle quickly in a way that Stiles wished he could approximate in the slightest. His dad was the best at shooting, really.

Stiles tried harder to reload like his dad, moving like him the best he could. He emptied the chamber, and he scored really well, almost perfectly. “Dad, there is something that you might not understand about what is happening here, and I think that I should tell you…” but Stiles stopped talking when he saw the look of disappointment in his father’s eyes. Was he thinking that Stiles was trying to get out of being a patient at a mental hospital?

“Stiles, would telling me this endanger any of your friends?”

“Well…” that was certainly not what he thought his dad was going to ask.

“Would you be breaking a confidence? You understand that I’m the Sheriff, and anything strange happening in my town would require me to take care of it?”

“Dad…”

“Would not telling me something cover up or make you an accomplice to anything illegal?” His dad paused for a moment, “If there is anything that you think I should know, perhaps you should let me discover it in my investigations into anything strange happening in this town. This way, I don’t have to place my own son under arrest if I can’t find that he had little to nothing to do with the strange happenings under my jurisdiction.” Then his dad pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and hit the target in front of him.

Stiles was quiet for the ride home, and he wondered if this silence was going to be a thing with him. He hated the silence, wished that he could break it with talking so that he didn’t have to think, but he didn’t know if he could trust himself to say anything at all at this point. 

Derek was standing on the front porch of his house when they got out of the car, and the sheriff parked next to Derek’s Camaro. Stiles got out of the car quickly so that he could warn him about not saying anything in front of his dad, and Stiles’s dad helped out by not getting immediately out of the car.

“You can’t say anything to him,” Stiles said, “he just pretty much explained to me that he didn’t want to know anything so that he didn’t have to arrest us. Well, me, actually. He didn’t want to arrest me.”

Derek nodded, seeming to study Stiles, but his dad walked up behind them. Stiles was a little surprised to see his dad looking at Derek like his dad was guilty of something. “Hale,” Stiles dad said.

“Sheriff,” Derek nodded his head, and Stiles was quietly freaking out that his dad and Derek were talking.

“You here for dinner?” Stiles’s dad asked him while he unlocked the front door.

“No,” Derek said, surprise on his face. He looked at Stiles with questions in his eyes, like he was asking Stiles if he was aware of what was going on. “Just wanted to ask Stiles a question.”

“All right. Come in when you’re finished, Stiles,” and his dad walked into the house.

“Okay, dad,” Stiles said, and he wondered if his dad could hear the confusion in his voice.

Derek tilted his head to one side, “He’s answering a phone call,” Derek said. “Can I see the copy of the book that you were talking about?”

Stiles thought briefly about the book that was in his hoodie, and decided that Derek couldn’t possibly know anything about it. “I can bring it to you, but like I said, it’s in Polish. I have a copy of a translation that I did that would probably be more helpful to you, but I’ll have to print it out. It’s saved on my computer.”

Derek cocked his head again. “Your dad sounds upset about something. Does he speak Polish, too?”

“No,” Stiles said, “Dad only speaks English… and Russian. Is he speaking Russian right now?”

“He sounds really pissed off about something,” Derek said.

Stiles shrugged. “When he talks to our relatives in Russia, he usually sounds pissed.”

“Are you coming to practice tonight?” Derek asked. “You don’t have to, if you don’t feel up to it, but I think that it would be good for you to be there.”

“I’ll be there. Scott said Dr. Deaton wanted to teach me some more things.”

“Are you okay, working with Dr. Deaton? I can stay with you while you’re together, if he bothers you,” Derek looked worried about Stiles, and that was a very strange feeling. 

Stiles ignored it. “I’ll be fine. It was just bad timing for him to ask…”

“Lydia said that your mother had been shot,” Derek said softly.

Because it was Derek, Stiles didn’t freak out. “Scott…” he said a little like he was suffering for a while.

“If you want to talk about it, you know that I have no room to judge you,” Derek urged.

“Derek, you have a pack to take care of, and I can’t talk about it. Concentrate on things that are important,” Stiles said.

“Not talking about it is making you weak,” Derek argued. “I need you at full strength, I need your head in this. You can’t afford to be distracted.”

“You don’t understand,” Stiles said, glancing at the door his father went through. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Derek followed his gaze to the door, and he seemed to tense up a little. “Sometimes, in order for a military to function at its best, soldiers have to disobey orders.”

“I’m hardly in the military,” Stiles said.

Derek kept looking at him, waiting.

Stiles sighed. “I have to go in.”

Derek nodded, but Stiles knew that Derek noticed he hadn’t promised him anything, either way. If Stiles told Derek what had happened, and Derek couldn’t look at him anymore, at least he wouldn’t be losing anything he had ever had. He would have to set the condition that Derek kept it a secret, even from Scott, because he couldn’t bear to lose Scott’s friendship.

Stiles went inside, thinking. He knew that Derek had a point, and a damn good one. Every single pop-psychology book urged people to talk about traumatic experiences, something about how knowing that someone else knew and sympathized with your pain made it hurt less or something stupid like that. 

“What was that all about?” his dad asked him, shutting his cell phone as he came back into the kitchen.

“A bunch of teenage stuff, dad. You wouldn’t understand.”

The sheriff nodded. Stiles supposed that he was thinking that it was good that Stiles was going out and making friends, although he didn’t look particularly pleased that Derek was going to be one of them. Maybe he was upset about the fact that Derek was a Person of Interest.

“Did you and Scott eat everything in here?” his dad asked, staring at the mostly empty freezer.

“Sorry, dad,” Stiles said with a grin. 

They ate quickly, whatever was in the freezer, and Stiles barely tasted the food as he put it in his mouth. He was thinking about his dad speaking Russian again, something he hadn’t done before his mother had died. 

“When did you start speaking Russian?” Stiles asked, curious. He wondered how close his dad had been to their Russian relatives.

“A while ago,” his dad said, vaguely. That kind of bothered Stiles. He was used to secrets, but he was getting really tired of them.

“You left this book on your desk,” Stiles said, pulling it out of his hoodie. “You read Russian, too?”

“Stiles…” his dad sounded tired.

“I just thought that our last name was spelled wrong because of a mix up at Ellis Island. Apparently, no one could spell there, but we didn’t come through Ellis Island, did we dad?” Stiles put the pieces together quickly in his mind.

“No,” his dad said, and he looked really tired. “No, we didn’t.”

“I don’t know anyone who reads Russian,” Stiles continued. “So I think that maybe you need to go through this book with me.”

His dad made a snorting sound. “You could find someone to translate Archaic Latin, but Russian is a stumbling block for you?”

“How did you know about…”

“Son, be careful about questions you want me to answer. I don’t think you want to know everything you’re asking.”

“Let me think, dad,” Stiles said, getting up from the couch.

“You probably don’t want to talk about this with your friends,” his dad said, “Especially Allison and Derek.”

Stiles stared at him, shocked. He decided to wait, because that was something that he was good at, and he turned around and went to his room to print off that translation for Derek.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles sat on Derek’s old burnt out back porch with Dr. Deaton. Dr. Deaton had tried to go inside with Stiles to teach him, but Derek had growled and said that he didn’t want Stiles out of his sight. Dr. Deaton had backed down immediately, but Stiles looked confused, especially when the rest of the pack seemed to agree with Derek. 

“We’ve already established that you have enough willpower to perform magic,” Dr. Deaton told Stiles, “and that’s the hardest lesson. You must have immediate intent, and enough stubbornness to believe that it can happen.”

Stiles nodded, watching as Dr. Deaton organized small bottles of funny colored powders on the picnic table that had been placed outside. 

“When you’re performing magic, some people believe that reciting or incanting certain words will help you to focus your intent. The words in themselves aren’t always powerful with basic magic, and that’s all we’ll be going over today. There are powerful words, but they are secret and are normally never taught outside magical families. That’s why I’m going to ask you a question, and it is very important that I do this, Stiles, so please don’t feel like you have to answer it. What was your mother’s name?”

Stiles stared at Dr. Deaton. He tried to remember if his dad had told him that this was something else he should keep a secret, but he figured that he was safe on this, at least. “Batory.”

“Agnieszka Batory?” Dr. Deaton asked him.

“Yes,” Stiles said, swallowing heavily.

“Batory being the Polish version of Báthory, correct?” Dr. Deaton asked him.

“According to Wikipedia,” Stiles shrugged his shoulders like he hadn’t spent hours researching his mother’s last name.

“So, you are related to that family,” Dr. Deaton mused.

“It’s highly improbable that I have a direct bloodline…”

“To the Sixteenth Century King of Poland and the Prince of Transylvania, Stephen Báthory?” Dr. Deaton smiled.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “And he was only the king because he married the Queen of Poland…”

“Anna Jagiellon, I know. I read that book,” Dr. Deaton kept smiling. “I’ve got to say though, I don’t really believe in coincidence. Anything else strike you when you read about him?”

“His official coat of arms bear the official seal of the Order of the Dragon, over red and white claws intertwined.” Stiles said.

Dr. Deaton nodded his head. “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to establish a family tree there, Stiles, and I know that you can do that rather simply.”

“What does it mean, if I am related to him?” Stiles asked.

“It means that we would have to find you a teacher from your mother’s family, who would know how your magic worked. Until then, we can stick to teaching you the basics.”

“Why did you think, in the beginning, that I would be the person who was able to use magic?” Stiles asked.

“Scott told me you almost immediately identified what he was.”

“I watched a lot of Buffy when I was a kid?” Stiles asked.

“It doesn’t hurt that your mother is from one of the more… notorious families from medieval Europe, I suppose.”

“Just because Elizabeth Batory liked to bathe in the blood of virgin girls doesn’t mean they were all bad,” Stiles grinned.

Dr. Deaton rolled his eyes, but he continued with his lecture about the powders and patterns within which to use them. Stiles remembered everything that he said and filed it away in his brain, not needing to take notes or anything. Dr. Deaton noticed that he wasn’t taking any notes, and he asked Stiles to repeat something about one of the powders he mentioned earlier, and when Stiles told him what he said verbatim, Dr. Deaton didn’t question him again. It was a trick that Stiles had learned at an early age, and it was one that he used regularly.

The wolves were practicing out in the woods. Derek could hear them, but he stayed at the edge of the forest to pay attention to what Stiles and Dr. Deaton were doing. Allison, Lydia, and Danny were practicing with Chris Argent, and not only was he teaching them to shoot, he also taught them some hand to hand combat and useful skills, like how to get out of a situation where you were tied up or held against your will.

The last was a skill that Stiles wished that he knew more about, but he forced himself to pay attention to Dr. Deaton. It was getting harder to focus as the Adderall was wearing off, but towards the end of the night, when everyone was packing up to leave, Stiles hung behind with Derek.

Scott took the hint that he was planning on talking with Derek. He had a wounded look on his face, but he seemed to accept Stiles’s decision. Once Scott started making noises about Allison and Chris giving him a ride home, everyone else took the hint and they quickly scattered off. Stiles didn’t trust a single one of them not to use their freaky werewolf hearing once they were out of sight.

“First of all,” Stiles took a really deep breath, “you can’t repeat any of this to anyone. No matter what. Ever. Under pain of death and deballing. Especially Scott.”

Derek looked at him, and then he gestured for Stiles to follow him into the Hale house. 

It wasn’t a place that Stiles had gotten to see a whole lot of. There were signs of repair, plastic tarp hanging over openings in the house and the beginnings of floors being pulled up in various rooms. Derek was very clearly gutting the entire building, but Stiles wondered if he shouldn’t just knock the whole thing down and start over. 

“The foundation is the only thing that is still intact,” Derek said. “Every other thing is going to have to be replaced except for possibly the rebar.”

Stiles nodded, and followed as Derek walked back towards a room. He turned on a white noise machine that he had laying around, and Stiles wanted to laugh a little. What kind of life were they leading when a white noise machine was something they had just laying around?

Derek sprawled out on what looked like a Victorian couch, the green silk embroidered with sooty black and green flowers. Stiles sat next to him, and he clasped his hands between his legs and took a breath. He glanced at Derek, and then he looked back at his hands, and then he looked at Derek again.

“I was twelve,” Stiles said, “it was three days before my thirteenth birthday.”

Derek didn’t say a word. 

“Dad taught me a lot of things, things I don’t really want to talk about even though they are part of this story. I already knew how to shoot a gun, which is important for you to know. I knew how to handle myself in almost every situation, and mom and dad were talking about letting me go to school even though they weren’t sure that I was ready. I knew I was, though. I knew that I could go to school and control myself and not make any trouble or… hurt anyone. I knew that I could do it, and I thought that I should prove it to them. So I decided that it was a good idea to prove it by getting my mom something that she really loved, something she really would appreciate, and something that would require me to go somewhere that wasn’t Beacon Hills to get it. It would prove that I could go from one place to another safely and that I knew how to handle myself.”

“Where did you decide to go?” Derek asked him.

“Berkley,” Stiles whispered. “I decided to go get a pizza from my mom’s favorite place in Berkley and bring it back to her.”

“Did they find out?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, mom got a call from the credit card company asking her why she was buying a bus ticket to Berkley when she had never done that before, so she left immediately to go get me.” Stiles was quiet for a very long time.

“What did she do when she found you?”

“I never left Beacon Hills,” Stiles whispered, and this time Derek had to sit closer to him to hear what he was saying. “I got to the bus stop, and they found me.”

“Who found you?”

“I don’t know. I never saw their faces,” Stiles said. He hadn’t, that was the truth. They were wearing ski masks.” Stiles could tell Derek what their entrails looked like, but he shied away from that thought quickly.

“Did they hurt you?” Derek growled a little.

“Yes,” Stiles said. “For three days, before my mom came in.”

“What did they want?” Derek asked.

Stiles looked into Derek’s eyes, “They wanted me to lose control,” Stiles wondered how many details he was going to have to share to make it better.

“What happens when you lose control, Stiles?” Derek asked gently.

“They kept asking me to see what I was made of,” Stiles said, ignoring the question. “They beat me, they punched me and kicked me and broke my hand. They whipped me and raped me and they spat in my face. All I could hear, all I could see was my mother’s face, begging me to never lose control. I kept chanting that in my head, replaying her words over and over again, gritting my teeth because Derek, everything that they did to me, I could do a lot worse to them, and it was better for them to never ever find out.” He said it quickly, in a detached voice that kept him outside of what had happened to him, like if the words came out fast enough he wouldn’t have to feel a single thing.

“Stiles, you were twelve years old,” Derek said.

Stiles couldn’t let himself take comfort in Derek’s words, or he would lose it. “So my mom and dad figured out where they were keeping me. They caught my mom trying to sneak in, and they beat her in front of me. She kept telling me to let them, she kept telling me to hold on because my dad was coming, and so they killed her. They shot her in front of me.”

Derek was quiet, staring Stiles in the eyes.

“I lost control, Derek,” Stiles said. “They silenced her, and I lost control.”

“Stiles…” Derek said helplessly.

“I killed each and every one of them. I killed them all before they could blink. I killed all seven of them, and when my dad came in and found me my mother was laying on the ground, already dead, and the gun was still in her murderer’s hand. Dad didn’t talk to me for weeks after that, Derek. He was so pissed that I didn’t do anything earlier to save her. It’s my fault she died, because I sat there and did nothing.” 

“How?” Derek choked.

Stiles stared back at his hands again. He clasped and unclasped his fingers methodically, concentrating on the way that his skin felt. He stood up and tugged at his short hair. “I have to go,” Stiles said. He had to get away.

“Stiles…” Derek started to say.

“You’re safe. All of you are safe from me. I have control now, it’s just the onset of puberty is generally a bad time for my family. You don’t have to worry about anything, Derek. I don’t use it, I won’t ever hurt anyone ever again, okay?”

“Stiles, I need more information,” Derek said, standing up and holding Stiles’s arm. “You have to tell me what it is that you can do, and what sets you off now, and what I need to look out for... what are you?”

“I’m human,” Stiles said, looking at Derek in the eye. “I’m simply human. I’ve looked everything up about myself that you could possibly think of. I’m human. There isn’t a single magical creature that I could find that explains what I can do. I’m just Stiles,” he said, shrugging.

“Well, we all knew that, didn’t we?” another voice said from the opening between Derek’s living room and the entry way.

Derek growled, shoving Stiles behind him, like he needed protecting or something after he told Derek what he was capable of.

“Who are you?” Derek demanded, staring at the man standing there, looking casual.

The man had pale, pale skin. His hair was white and hung to his waist where it was perfectly trimmed at the edges. He wore a white sweater and black jeans and black boots, which set off his paleness in an almost creepy manner. His eyes were a pale, pale yellow that flashed red when he looked at Derek. He was really, really tall. “Stephanus Rasciae, pleased to meet you,” the man smiled, revealing long, slender fangs. “You can call me Steve.”

“What do you want?” Derek demanded.

“God, you are the cutest puppy I think I’ve ever seen,” Steve said, smiling at Derek like he was really adorable. “Please tell me you haven’t taken a mate yet. I think I want to keep you.”

“Stefan Lazar the Fourth, St. Stephen, founder of the Renaissance in Eastern Europe,” Stiles said, remembering something that he read, “also called the Despot, formerly a Serbian Prince in 1389…”

“I love it when they’re smart, don’t you?” Steve said, winking at Derek. 

“First member of the Order of the Dragon,” Stiles continued, almost whispering.

“In a few years, you are just going to be sex on a stick,” the tall man said, studying Stiles. “I’ll keep your puppy until you grow up a bit, I think.”

“No,” Stiles said calmly, stepping in front of Derek. “He’s mine. This town is mine, these people are mine, and you are taking nothing.”

“No,” the man said. “Because, you see, you are ours; therefore, whatever you claim as yours is ours. See how that works?”

“I have sworn no such thing,” Stiles said. 

“You think because your father allied himself with another family, all ancient promises are broken?”

Obviously, Stiles was missing something important here. He blundered on, refusing to take any bait thrown at him. “You and your pack need to leave. You will take nothing with you, and you will harm nothing and no one as you leave. There is nothing here for you. I am not yours, nor will I ever be. I belong here, with this pack, in this town.”

Steve cocked his head a little bit, his long white hair moving like a living thing. He could have been considered beautiful, if Stiles could look at anything objectively. He didn’t, so he went with creepy. Not sexy creepy like Derek, just creepy. “Interesting,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the games ahead of us,” and he simply turned around and walked out of Derek’s house.

“How did he do that?” Derek asked. “I didn’t smell him or hear him until he was right there…”

“He’s kind of old. Maybe he learned something over the years,” Stiles said, not looking at Derek. God, he had just claimed a wolf in front of another wolf. He hoped there weren’t any repercussions because of that statement. “Plus, white noise machine,” he gestured over to the machine that was still running.

Derek nodded his head. “That was one of the Alphas,” he stated, like it was the most important thing that had just happened.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, wishing Derek would say something else.

Derek studied Stiles for a minute, and Stiles felt his skin getting hot. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt really embarrassed to have Derek studying him after he knew everything that Stiles had… or hadn’t done.

“Stiles, you’re still a good person,” Derek said. “You are still someone that I would protect, you understand that, don’t you? You understand every single person in my pack owes their lives to you for saving them, over and over again. Scott owes his life to you, Lydia and Jackson owe their lives to you, Chris and Allison owe their lives to you. You might not have directly saved them, but you have kept them safe for a year now. No matter what you think that you have done, no matter what decisions have needed to be made, you made them. You did right.”

“Derek,” Stiles started to say, but he was startled when Derek took his chin in his hand and pushed his head up so that he was forced to stare into Derek’s eyes.

“Whatever this pack wants with you, they’re not going to take it. You know that, right?”

Stiles slowly felt his heart rate speeding up. Derek was awfully close, and for once he wasn’t pushing him up against a wall or threatening him. He felt the tips of Derek’s fingers very briefly touch his cheek, running down the sides of his face, before Derek stepped back. “I… I should go home,” Stiles said. “I should probably talk to my dad about this…”

Derek nodded. Whatever had happened in that moment they just shared, he was wigged out by it, too. He didn’t look at Stiles at all, so Stiles took the opportunity to get out of the house and jump in his Jeep. He probably should have been more cautious since creepy Steve was out there somewhere, but he felt jumpy and he needed to figure out what was going on with that look Derek had just given him.

Stiles’s dad was at work by the time he got home, so he went up to his room and opened up his laptop so he could stare at something mundane while his brain slowed down. Unfortunately, not even videos of kittens could distract him, so he threw himself on his bed, landing on something uncomfortable.

Laying there was the book he had liberated from the mess on his father’s desk earlier that day. Next to it was an English-to-Russian dictionary and a book of Russian grammar that Stiles knew that he didn’t have before. Whatever was going on with his dad, it looked like he thought Stiles was ready to start learning the family secrets. 

In any case, Stiles smiled ruefully to himself, it was a good thing that these things were there, or he would be stuck thinking about Derek all night. Who had apparently accepted him even after he found out what a coward he was and had thought that Stiles had saved some people’s lives or something. And had touched his cheek…

Stiles snatched his hand away from his face. There was Russian to be translated, he told himself, and that was what was important right now.


	6. Chapter 6

Talking about it was like lancing a boil, apparently. Stiles tossed and turned in his bed, remembering the conversation with Derek, before he drifted off into a fitful sleep filled with dreams that entertained images of the warehouse where he had been trapped, snippets of the Russian he had been trying to translate before he went to bed, and memories of his mother smiling at him. He woke up in a cold sweat, remembering trying to scream but not being able to, and he glanced at the clock. It was almost three in the morning.

Stiles took a few deep breaths to calm himself, counting to ten in English and Polish and the Spanish that he was learning at school, and then he tried to remember the Russian that he was learning on top of that but nothing was helping. He sat up in his bed and just tried to be still.

That was when he heard the low murmur of voices coming from downstairs.

Stiles snuck out of bed, his bare feet hitting the floor with barely a sound. He grabbed the gun out of the nightstand, checking to make sure that the safety was on before he crept out of his room and down the stairs.

The voices didn’t sound excited at all, but it was definitely two men speaking to each other in a low tone of voice. Stiles followed the sound until he was right outside the kitchen, where the voices were coming from. Then he frowned. What were his dad and Derek Hale doing in there at three o’clock in the morning?

Stiles tucked the gun into the back of his pants, and he slowly slid down the wall to listen to their conversation.

“So… you’re not a hunter?” Derek asked his father.

Stiles’s ears perked up. Why would Derek think his dad was a hunter?

“No,” his dad said, “Why would you think I was a hunter?”

“Stiles is always quoting something about Occam’s Razor,” Derek said. “No matter how improbable the explanation, when everything else has been stripped away…”

“No, I’m not a hunter. In the sense that you have become accustomed to, at any rate,” Stiles could hear his dad shifting at the kitchen table, and he heard the clink of a whiskey bottle hitting the rim of a bowler glass. He was used to that sound, but it was beyond weird hearing his dad talking about hunters with Derek at the kitchen table.

“I want to know why you need Stiles to control himself. Is he human? Are you human?” Derek asked.

There was a loud sigh on his dad’s part, “I’m human, mostly,” he said, and Stiles almost had a heart attack at that confession. “My family is cursed, but we’re human.”

“I need to know what that means for Stiles,” Derek said. “I can’t protect him if I don’t have pertinent information.”

“Stiles will not break,” his dad said. “His control is unlike anything I have ever seen. He has lost it once, in his whole life. When I was raised with my brothers and cousins and uncles, none of us had one iota of the control that Stiles has.”

“What is he? Why is the Alpha pack after him?”

Stiles listened a little more, but his dad was very, very quiet. He thought that his dad wasn’t going to answer Derek’s question, but then he heard his dad’s voice, quiet and not quite calm. “My family is sworn to the service of the Order of the Dragon,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Derek asked.

“In short, we hunt evil. The Argents concentrate on werewolves, they think that just because you are shape changers it makes you evil. We hunt evil. A long time ago, one of my ancestors killed a dragon, single handedly. He was quickly taken away from his village by the Alpha pack, who used dark magic to curse him, to make him just a little bit less than human. He became vicious, so much so that he and his sons were kept far away from every other being. The Alphas loved this, loved having a human that responded to that side of their wolf. The Staliński Family was kept as their personal guards for generations upon generations, each one more ferocious than the next. We decided outcomes of wars, we were trained to hunt demons and true monsters, we protected the wolves when they were at the weakest.”

“You protected wolves?” Derek asked, and Stiles was surprised when he didn’t sound scornful.

“Compared to us, you are all weak and powerless,” Stiles father said, but there was no bragging in his voice, only complete and total shame. He was surprised when he heard his father sniffing, like he was crying. It was quiet for a long time, and Stiles realized his father was crying. “I’m sorry I let the Argents…”

“No,” Derek said. “No, I can figure out what was going on at that time. Stiles’s mother died on the same day that my family…”

“I was distracted, Pela…”

“You are forgiven, Sheriff,” Derek said gently.

“You know that Pela was friends with your mother?” Stiles dad asked.

“I know,” Derek said.

“They always thought that it was funny you and Stiles shared a birthday,” there was a pause, and another clinking sound that told Stiles his father was refilling his glass. “If they knew how much we would all dread that day every year…”

“Did my parents know…”

“No,” the sheriff said, “We discussed telling them, but we were so afraid of anyone finding out…”

“How did you get away from them?” Derek asked. “How did you break free from the Alphas?”

“They loaned my particular branch of the family to the Russian government for a few generations. They were paid a lot of money, and Romania was granted partial immunity from the Communist government for the loan. Our name was changed to Staliński for the duration of our stay. Once the Iron Curtain fell, the United States requested a loan to train their own forces. I was the one that was volunteered, although the Alphas were not aware of one of us being promised. I left as soon as possible to be able to go before they prevented it.

“Stiles’s mother was my partner, she and I were expected to keep it professional, but she had been recruited specifically by the United States government, specifically by President Reagan himself, to be my partner. And she was so beautiful, Stiles looks so much like her…”

“What made her so special?” Derek asked.

“A million things, a billion things, but most of which was that she was a Batory and a little bit supernatural herself,” the sheriff said. “Pela’s family came to the States to seek sanctuary during World War II, when Hitler was recruiting the supernatural beings at gunpoint.”

“So Stiles’s mother was supernatural?”

“Her family was. She never told me what made them special and I never asked, because I knew that secrets come with a cost. I don’t know if Stiles is, or if his amazing control is a product of that ability. I don’t know when I can talk to him about it, or if I ever will.”

“If you believe that secrets come at a cost, why are you telling me all of this?”

There was another clink of glass on glass, and Stiles held his breath.

“I’m in the United States because I’m the guardian of a minor. The United States cannot give me full citizenship.”

“And Stiles is about to turn eighteen.”

“And so I will go back to Russia,” the sheriff sounded tired. 

“So you are telling me these secrets because…”

“I’ve seen the way that you look at my son,” the sheriff said.

Derek was quiet for only a moment. “I mean no disrespect…”

“Stop that,” the sheriff said. “It has nothing to do with disrespect. I know that you will look after my boy, because he cannot go to Russia with me. I want him to choose whatever he wants to become, I don’t want this curse or this destiny or whatever you want to call it to follow him.”

“Who took him?” Derek asked. “When he was kidnapped, who took him?”

The sheriff paused. “I’m not certain.” The clink of glass on glass was louder, less controlled. “I do know that what he went through is a traditional Staliński test, to find out if he is ready to begin his training.”

“You went through it?” Derek asked. “You knew what he was going through, and you let him go through it?”

“I didn’t know it was them, if it was them. I didn’t know that they had found us. I do know that I was so concerned with looking for him that I missed what was happening to the only werewolf pack in my area. If it was them, I failed their test.”

“Did Stiles pass?” Derek asked. “Is that why they’re here now?”

“I have never heard of anyone lasting three days,” the sheriff said. “I only lasted for three hours. One of my cousins lasted for six. I have never heard of anyone ever lasting three days.”

“Why didn’t they take him then?” Derek asked.

“I don’t know,” the sheriff said.

“You know he feels responsible for his mother’s death,” Derek said.

“It was my fault. I was the one who married her,” his dad protested quickly. 

“You might want to tell Stiles that,” Derek said.

Stiles kind of figured that their conversation was drawing to a close, so he tiptoed quietly back up to his room. He put the gun away, and then stretched out on his bed. There were so many thoughts running through his mind, so much information that he needed to process, and he didn’t know what to do with it all.

It made sense that his dad knew about the supernatural. It made sense that the American government knew that his dad knew about the supernatural. Otherwise, Beacon Hills should have been crawling with federal agents, trying to figure out why the murder rate had skyrocketed like it had over the past year. It made sense that his family had protected werewolves historically. It made sense that Stiles’s mom was something special, even if no one knew exactly what that was. What really, really did not make sense was that apparently Stiles’s dad had given his blessing to Derek, who as far as Stiles knew didn’t have any special feelings towards him. If Stiles was in his dad’s position, why wouldn’t he have chosen Scott, or someone who occasionally was known to give a serious shit about him? Why Derek? What did he mean about the way that Derek looked at him?

This was not what he should be focusing on, Stiles told himself. He should be focusing on why a group of Alphas were plotting to take him away or make him their bitch or whatever it was they were planning on. Why would they want him? Why didn’t they take him earlier? Why now?

Would they hurt him again?

Stiles blinked. He refocused. He lost his breath. 

He didn’t think that he could do it again. He didn’t think that he could live through… he couldn’t live through that again. He couldn’t let them; he couldn’t let them touch him. He would die first. He would fucking kill himself before he let that happen again. 

He didn’t know that he was screaming until Derek and his dad burst into his room. His dad had his gun pulled and Derek’s eyes were red, his fangs were out and his claws were extended. Stiles kept screaming, even as Derek smelled his room and searched for an intruder. His dad was looking out the window, holding his gun at the ready, and Derek took Stiles in his arms, holding him close and making small comforting sounds in the back of his throat. 

“Shh… Stiles, it’s okay. I’m here now, it’s okay Stiles, there’s nothing here, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Derek’s voice was low and comforting, but Stiles couldn’t stop screaming. He felt Derek’s hand move as he reached out to take a pill that his dad was handing him, and then Derek’s fingers were in his mouth, shoving the pill down his throat and then pulling them out to stroke Stiles’s throat, forcing him to swallow. “I’ve got you, baby, I got you, I’m right here.”

Stiles grabbed the arm Derek had wrapped around him, his fingers digging holes in the muscles he found there. Derek was here, he tried to tell himself, Derek was there and he was big and many people found him scary and intimidating, and he could fight. Stiles stopped screaming so that he could gasp for breath, which was kind of hard to do.

“See, it’s okay, it’s okay baby,” Derek kept whispering in his ear. 

“Panic attack?” Stiles heard his dad ask.

Derek must have nodded or something, because his dad nodded his head in reaction to whatever movement Derek had made. Stiles heard the door close, and he was left alone with Derek.

Derek was running his fingers through Stiles’s very short hair, the repetitive motion soothing him. “Go back to sleep,” Derek said. “I’m right here. I’ll be here all night.”

Stiles whimpered a little. He could feel the drug slowly invading his body again. “Don’t leave,” he demanded.

“I’m not. I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise,” Derek said. “This is normal. This is natural, after you talk about it for the first time. It’s good, you’re doing it right.”

“Don’t leave me alone,” Stiles gasped. He held onto Derek’s arm, clasping it to his chest like the lifeline that it was.

“I won’t. No one should go through this alone, especially you. I won’t let it happen,” Derek said some other things that made Stiles realize that Derek had, he had gone through everything alone. Stiles held him closer, buried his face in Derek’s shoulder, and held on to him as best he could. 

Morning was a long time coming, but Stiles didn’t fall asleep. The pill calmed him, but he was too scared to go back to sleep. He lay in Derek’s arms silently, finding comfort in the sound of Derek’s heart against his ear. Derek didn’t move at all, but Stiles knew he was awake, too. 

When morning came, Stiles felt really awkward. “Sorry,” he said. 

“For what?” Derek asked.

“For vomiting my emotions all over you like that,” Stiles said. 

“As long as it wasn’t real vomit,” Derek said, “I think I can handle it. I can’t stand watching people really vomit. Triggers my gag reflex.”

Stiles couldn’t help it, he was seventeen. Thinking about Derek’s gag reflex got his mind thinking about other things, and he looked away before he could intrude on this moment by being a perv. “Thanks,” Stiles choked out. “But please don’t tell…”

“Like I want to admit that I was holding you all night long?” Derek sneered at him.

“Thanks,” Stiles repeated himself. He knew that Derek wasn’t serious, and if he had reacted any other way Stiles would have immediately been uncomfortable. 

“You owe me,” Derek said, “for once, you owe me. Keep that in mind.”

“Yeah, if you need me to come hold you through the night, just give me a call,” Stiles said, but that was immediately uncomfortable, too. He hated his filter, sometimes.

“I think you need your Adderall,” Derek smoothly fixed the atmosphere around them, digging through the pharmaceutical jungle that was Stiles’s desk drawer. “Which one of your five hundred pill bottles is your Adderall?”

“The orange one,” Stiles said like they weren’t all orange or something, opening his closet up to find some clothing. “I’m going to go take a shower…”

“Take your pill,” Derek said, holding the correct bottle out.

Stiles stuck his tongue out at Derek, who seemed surprised at the gesture. He took the pill anyway and dry swallowed it, grimacing at the feel of it going down his throat. He paused for a minute before he left his room, “Are you going to be here when I get out?”

“Do you want me to be?” Derek asked.

Stiles didn’t know how to say it, but he wasn’t ready for Derek to be gone yet. “My dad makes really good pancakes,” he offered instead.

Derek smiled, and then he looked surprised as Stiles heart fluttered for the first time. 

“Um, so shower,” Stiles said, and then he left the room as quickly as he could, stumbling over some books that were laying on his floor. “Grace,” Stiles said, and then he was gone out of the bedroom. 

He could hear Derek laughing at him as he walked down the stairs. “Ass,” Stiles said behind the closed bathroom door, and that just made Derek laugh harder.

They ate, and since it was a Saturday Stiles announced that he was going to go talk to Dr. Deaton that afternoon, to see what else he had to say about Stiles learning magic. Derek very calmly suggested that Scott or Isaac accompany him when he wanted to go, and Stiles’s dad agreed almost immediately with the suggestion. 

Stiles scowled, but he called around until Jackson said he’d go with him. That was really freaking weird, but Derek smiled happily that Stiles was not going to be alone that day. He was still upset with Dr. Deaton over the questions he had asked, although it had been necessary to get to where they were. 

“What are you going to be doing today, Derek?” the sheriff asked.

“I thought that I would work with Argent on coming up with some ideas on how to handle the Alpha pack…” 

“Why don’t you come to the station with me?” Stilinski asked. “Shadow me for a day. See how you like the life of a cop.”

Derek was quiet for a moment. “You want me to…”

“You’re going to need a job someday, aren’t you?” Stiles’s dad asked.


	7. Chapter 7

“It’s good to see you boys getting along so well,” Coach Finstock said as Stiles’s ass warmed the bench, watching his friends play Lacrosse. His teeth gnawed on the laces of his Lacrosse stick, but he dropped it to cheer when Jackson scored a goal.

The little bout of normalcy in the chaotic mess that his life had become was a welcome reprieve. Finstock however, was not so much.

“It was like last year, you could barely stand to be in the same locker room as each other, and after the way this year started out, I thought it was going to be more of the same. This is why they shouldn’t cut school funding for athletics, mortal enemies made allies, it’s like a movie!” Finstock said. “It’s so good to see Lacrosse pulling everyone together like this.”

“Maybe you should let me play,” Stiles said, “You know, since I scored three goals last year.”

“You’re only good when all the odds are against us,” Finstock said bluntly. “Or when that red-headed girl is in the stands.”

“She’s strawberry blonde,” Stiles said as a reflex. He wasn’t still in love with Lydia. Overhearing that conversation with Derek and his dad two nights ago made him realize that he might have been infatuated with her, but knowing that his dad knew everything and that he still loved Stiles, it made him realize that he didn’t have to do anything to make his dad love him anymore than he already did. He didn’t have to have a perfect life, he just had to have a good one by doing whatever made him happy. Lydia wasn’t going to do that for him, no matter how he thought that she would have made him appear like everyone else.

“Well, she’s not here tonight. So I’m not playing you,” Finstock said. 

“Sure coach,” Stiles said, going back to watching the game. He glanced at the stands, just to see who was there. It wasn’t like he was looking for Derek or anything, because there was no reason that Derek needed to be there what with Jackson, Scott, and Isaac on the team. He wasn’t disappointed that Derek wasn’t there, he told himself. He was just more comfortable when he was, that was all.

He did see one of the guys in a suit though. That was weird; usually they traveled in pairs. Stiles wondered if his delusion was slowly dying, now that he was talking about it and everything.

Then he saw another one, just a few seats over on the bleachers.

And there was another two, across the field on the opposing team’s side.

Stiles started breathing heavily. He had never seen four of them together. 

Was he getting worse? What was going on?

Isaac was the first who noticed that there was something wrong with Stiles. He shoved Scott and Jackson on the field, and they looked over at where Stiles was slowly losing his mind, not staring at what he thought were his delusions. 

At half-time, Stiles was instantly crowded by anxious werewolves and Danny. “What is it?” Scott demanded.

“Nothing,” Stiles said, not wanting to point out that he was crazy… well, crazier than they already knew to his friends.

“Stiles, are you going to have a…” Scott looked around, and then he whispered, “panic attack?”

Stiles laughed a little bitterly. “God Scott, way to be considerate.”

“You can tell us,” Jackson said, trying to figure out where the threat that Stiles thought was coming from, “it’s not like we have any place to judge you.”

“It’s nothing,” Stiles said, rubbing his head. “I think I might go home…”

“Coach will kick you off the team,” Scott said.

“Tell us and we’ll take care of it for you,” Isaac said. 

“It’s just…” Stiles said, accepting a glass of Gatorade that their team manager was passing around to all the players, “I have this delusion that these guys in suits are following me around sometimes. It’s nothing.”

“You mean, those guys in suits?” Danny asked, pointing over to where there were six of them standing at the concession stand. “They’ve been staring at you pretty hardcore all night.”

“You can see them?” Stiles asked, shocked.

“Yeah, why are they following you around?” Scott asked.

“What kind of suits are those?” Jackson asked, “I don’t recognize the name brand.”

“I think they’re tailored,” Danny said.

“Have they ever done anything to you?” Scott wanted to know. “How long have they been following you around?”

“They just watch me,” Stiles said. “Ever since my mom’s funeral.”

“They’ve been following you for five years and you never said anything?” Scott demanded.

“I thought that I was going crazy,” Stiles said. He looked around, “Wait, where’s Isaac?”

They looked around for a minute, and they spotted Isaac walking right up to the guys in suits to take his place in line behind them. He didn’t say anything to them, but he did make a strange face when he was standing in line behind them. He calmly waited to order a snack, and then he headed back to Stiles and the rest of the group.

“They smell funny,” Isaac informed them, handing a paper tray filled with mozerella sticks over to Stiles.

“Funny ha-ha, or funny…” Scott asked.

“Funny… like you remember when Mr. Harris brought that Tesla coil to class, and the whole room stank after he turned it on?” Isaac asked.

“It was ozone,” Stiles informed him. “They smell like ozone?”

“Really faint, but yeah,” Isaac said. “It was weird. And they weren’t talking in English at all. I don’t even know what kind of weird language that was.”

“Why are they spying on Stiles?” Jackson asked.

“We have to find out,” Danny said, “they might be part of the Alpha pack,” and really, Stiles was proud that Danny didn’t stumble over saying that at all, “and that can’t be good.”

Scott had his cell phone out, and his thumbs were moving at a rapid pace.

“What are you doing?” Stiles asked him.

“Derek needs to know that you’re being stalked by guys that smell like ozone. He needs to find out if your dad knows anything about it,” Scott said. “By the way, when did you know that your dad knew everything?”

“Two nights ago,” Stiles said, “but I should have figured it out before then.”

“It helps to have the sheriff in on this,” Danny said.

“Maybe I should tell my dad,” Jackson said, kind of thinking out loud.

“No,” Stiles said. “The less people who actually know, the better off we all are. It isn’t that we can’t trust your dad, Jackson, it’s just that people talk, and it’s hard enough to keep us a secret as every supernatural creature in this town just wants to announce their presence all the freakin’ time.”

With that, half-time was over, and Stiles headed his way back to the bench and everyone else went back to the field except for Jackson, who was talking to Finstock about something.

“Fine,” Finstock said loudly. “Greenburg, off the field. Stilinski, you’re playing.”

“Don’t hold back, Stiles,” Jackson whispered into his ear. “I want to see how they react.”

Stiles briefly wondered how many of the secrets he had been telling Derek had gotten back to the pack. He decided he was going to hold back, just not as much as he usually did. 

They played a perfectly choreographed game, and the other team had no chance against them. When Stiles scored, he looked up at the guys in suits, shocked to see that they were cheering for him. They looked honestly happy that Stiles was playing well.

“What the hell?” Stiles asked, as the werewolves around him looked a little bit confused by the cheering guys in suits, too. He also noticed that Derek had shown up with Lydia and Erica sitting next to him behind those guys, so of course he stumbled when the opposing team got the ball and one of their players smashed into him.

Well, despite his ability to be a super-badass not having to be hidden as much anymore, he was still a klutzy teenager. Derek wouldn’t ever be all that impressed with him, anyway, since he had already seen Stiles at his crying, snotty, panicky worst.

They continued to play, and Stiles didn’t get a chance to score again, and the guys in suits didn’t cheer again even when Scott and Jackson and Isaac all scored and Danny kept blocking the other team’s shots. The game was over, and Derek and the girls met them when they got out of the locker room, still kind of sweaty and smelly.

“Good job winning, Stiles,” Erica said, smiling at him.

“It was a team win,” Scott protested, but it wasn’t like Eric would ever compliment the rest of the pack, so she rolled her eyes.

“Thanks, Catwoman,” Stiles smiled at her.

Derek looked confused for a moment, obviously not liking Stiles and Erica’s little exchange for some reason, but he immediately started talking. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were being stalked?”

Stiles shrugged. “I don’t know, I thought I was going crazy.”

“What, like you have A Beautiful Mind or something?” Lydia asked.

“Schizophrenia, or I was having a psychotic break, or any one of a million more plausible reasons other than that I should be stalked by some super-secret government agency,” Stiles replied.

“Well, they smelled weird and they were speaking in some foreign language,” Derek said.

“Eastern European, I think,” Lydia said. “Russian or something.”

“There’s more than one language in Eastern Europe,” Stiles said. “Are you sure it was Russian?”

“No, it’s not like I’ve really heard any of those languages on a regular basis before,” Lydia said. “They just sounded not German, but it was all spitty like that,” Lydia said.

“Welsh sounds spitty, too,” Stiles said, trying not to roll his eyes.

“No, Welsh sounds sloshy,” Lydia protested. 

“In any case,” Derek told them, “They don’t smell human.”

“Wolves?” Jackson asked, “Are they wolves?”

“No,” Isaac said, “I think I would have noticed that and pointed that out.”

“Them being here, is it part of the Alpha pack?” Scott asked, and Stiles realized that he might actually have no idea about Stiles’s past at all, and that Derek hadn’t told them.

Stiles looked at Derek, and he realized that they were going to have to tell everyone. He wasn’t very comfortable with that idea, but it was something that was going to have to happen. “We’re going to have to get everyone together,” Stiles said. 

Derek looked at him, surprised and worried all at the same time. It was a good thing that Stiles was learning how to read eyebrow, because otherwise he would have no idea how Derek was feeling, ever. “Are you sure?” 

“I don’t want to, but if we’re going to do it I don’t want to have to say it more than once. We’ll meet at your house… and I’m bringing my dad.”

Derek nodded. “Okay, I’ll make sure that everyone is there.”

Stiles nodded. He turned to go before anyone could ask any questions, but he paused for a minute. “Thanks, Derek,” he said, and then he walked to his Jeep.

Convincing his dad to go with him to the Hale house wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. Trying to explain that they needed to tell everyone the circumstances of his mother’s murder, their family history, and all the things that his dad had never even said to Stiles directly, was not. 

When Stiles and his dad got there, everyone was already gathered. The Argents, Dr. Deaton, the McCalls, and the rest of the werewolf pack.

“Why’s the sheriff here?” Argent asked, a little startled.

“There’s a lot that you don’t know about the sheriff,” Dr. Deaton said, as if he knew something.

“The same could be said about you, Dr. Deaton,” the sheriff put a lot of stress on Dr. Deaton’s name, and Stiles kind of got the picture that his dad knew something about Dr. Deaton. “I guess I should start at the beginning?” Stilinski asked Derek, who simply nodded his head. They sat in the old burned out living room of the Hale house, although the walls had been coated in plastic tarp so there wasn’t much of a breeze.

“I was twenty-five, and already a Detective in the Paranormal Investigations Unit in the KGB,” Stiles dad started his story. This statement got everyone’s attention pretty effectively. “Part of my position was due to being a member of the Staliński family, and the other part was that I am a damn good detective. The government had just collapsed, and President Reagan had put in a request for one of our officers to come help them with an investigation in Arizona. I knew that there was no way that I would have been able to go if things hadn’t already been in such disarray, so I volunteered and before anyone could figure out what was going on or that I was breaking contract between the governments of Russia and Romania, I was on a plane and flying to the United States.”

The sheriff paused, trying to figure out if there was more that he needed to explain first. “You see, my family has been embroiled in the supernatural world for centuries. We have certain… skills that tend to attract the supernatural right to our doorstep, and we had been held by one organization as slaves for the past six hundred years or so. We were on loan to the Russian government, and they had no right to let me out of the country without this organization’s express permission. So when the opportunity came to escape, to be free, I jumped on it. My family knew, and they kept it quiet for almost thirteen years before the organization found out that I was not dead or missing, but working here in Beacon Hills.

“I hadn’t planned on ending up here, you understand. I just didn’t want to be there. As soon as I got off the plane, I was greeted by the woman who was going to be my partner courtesy of the CIA, and not too much later she became my wife. Pela was amazing, she had grown up in a family that was a little different, too. She and I worked well together, and our romance progressed very quickly. We decided that the best way to be together was to hide ourselves away, so we threw a dart at a map and ended up in Beacon Hills, California. Stiles was born almost as soon as we moved into our new house, and the Sheriff hired me almost immediately after a recommendation from the CIA. The United States government granted me a Green Card, and they changed my status to political refugee as soon as they could. When I became sheriff of a town that had so many supernatural creatures in it, they trusted me to keep everything under control. Last year almost destroyed that, but I filed the appropriate paperwork and they have stayed off our cases.”

“Why were you called over? If Stiles’s mom was already aware of the supernatural, then she should have been able to handle some werewolves…” Lydia said.

“I wasn’t called over for werewolves,” the sheriff said. “I was called over because there was a problem with demons in Arizona, and they needed someone stronger than a werewolf or any other Earth-bound creature to handle it.”

“So, your family are like hunters?” Argent asked.

“No,” the sheriff said, “My family are soldiers. We were cursed during the Dark Ages to make us better soldiers. We have fought or hunted a werewolves, yes, but only if they were possessed or insane. The order who owns my life uses supernatural creatures as soldiers, too. There is an entire unit made up of werewolves, and I have worked with them before.”

“And you think that this unit is the Alpha pack we are currently having problems with?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“I can say with certainty that it is,” the sheriff said.

“Why are they here?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“They’re here for Stiles,” the sheriff answered.

“Why Stiles?” Allison asked.

The sheriff looked at his son, and Stiles could see how tired his dad was and he felt guilty for it. “Stiles is very strong with his gifts,” the sheriff said vaguely. 

“You need to tell them what happened that let them know this,” Derek said. “They need to understand what exactly they are facing.”

“In my family, control is something that you must learn at an early age,” the sheriff said, “You cannot start your training until you can prove that you have perfect control in extenuating circumstances. The longer you have control, the more powerful they consider you. In order to test this, they do what they must to make you lose that control. They will take whatever measures necessary to make you lose control. When I went through the test, I was beaten for hours, but I lost it when they tried to rape me. I lasted three hours, which is average. Like I told Derek, I had a cousin that lasted for six hours.”

“Oh my God,” Scott said with horror, because he already understood what was going on. “Oh my God, Stiles…”

“They took Stiles when he was twelve years old, and I didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. Stiles lasted for three days, and he didn’t break until they beat and raped and then shot his mother in front of him,” Stilinski said.

Stiles couldn’t face anyone; he hated all of them because they knew his secret, so he got up and walked out of the room. Jackson was the only one who followed him out because the rest of them were busy asking Derek and his dad questions, and they sat on the front steps of the porch together quietly. It was a nice night, the stars were out and insects buzzed happily near Stiles’s ear. Jackson was warm beside him and he didn’t say anything at all, and Stiles just tried to not cry.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've never had a beta before, but this feels rushed. My friend said that it isn't though... anyone want to be a beta for me? I write at really odd times and I'm really impatient about feedback, but it'd be nice to have someone tell me when to slow down. So... anyone else sleep about four hours a day and really, really want to help insane people out? Anyone?

Stiles wished, more than anything, that his friends didn’t feel so obligated to tip-toe around him for the rest of the week. Everything that they said and did felt like they had evaluated it before they let it happen, and the atmosphere was so awkward that Stiles just had to escape. He had to find a place to be or something to do without all of them tailing him all the time.

So he told Jackson he was going to be with Isaac and he told Isaac that he was going to be with Danny. It seemed to be a great solution, and he skipped the last ten minutes of his class on Friday, leaving a note with his teacher about a doctor’s appointment, and he got out of the school parking lot before the madness of kids being set loose for the weekend started happening.

He drove to a bookstore on the edge of town, bought the first random book that looked semi-interesting, and went next door to a little coffee shop. It wasn’t his usual modus operandi, but he just needed an escape and he found out that he really liked the activity. No one bothered him at the coffee shop, and he was reading… whatever it was he was reading, and no one looked at him like the wind might break him. Stiles liked being around people, but for so many years without them it was wonderful to be by himself for a few moments. It was perfect.

Or until it was perfect until Steve showed up. That was not so perfect. That was like, more of a time that Stiles wished he had an automatic bat signal or something. 

“Aren’t you the brave one, out here all by your little self,” Steve said, his long white hair moving as he sat down at the table with Stiles.

“Oh dammit,” Stiles said, putting his book into his backpack. “Can’t you just go away?”

“Go away, when I can negotiate the terms of you leaving this godforsaken Hellhole and come with us where your destiny awaits? I mean, really Stiles, this place doesn’t even have a Starbucks. Why would you want to be here?”

“Because it doesn’t have a Starbucks? Oh, and my dad is here, and my friends, and I have this strange desire to graduate high school…”

“Oh yes, the American excuse for an education system. I can see the allure,” Steve said. “Wouldn’t you rather skip it and just go straight to University? I’ve seen your grades, I know that it isn’t necessary for you to graduate in order to go to college. Your name is already on the list of three major universities, isn’t it? We can pay for you to go to the University of your choice, and as the Order has control over most of the Universities in Europe, you wouldn’t even have to pay to go there.”

Stiles stared at him, “You’re big plan to seduce me to the dark side deals with college tuition? Really?”

“The dark side?” Steve asked him. “What makes you think that we’re on the dark side?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You threaten the local Alpha, you say vaguely pedophile-type things to me, you threaten me, my dad is doing his damnedest to stay away from you…”

“Your father was stuck in Russia his entire life. Have you ever thought that things at home base might be a little different?” Steve asked, resting his head on his hands and staring at Stiles.

“Dude, just stay away from me. Take your pack of Alphas and go away.”

“No Stiles, we came here for you. You are coming with us no matter what, we can recognize that you are one of a kind and we need that.”

“Seriously? There aren’t any other kids that you can try and steal? I’m not that special.”

“You are, darling boy, I don’t know why you would think that you aren’t. It took us three days to break you. I watched the camera feed, you understand, and I was fascinated by how you held out. You didn’t even scream once, and I watched your skin parting over your shoulders, I watched the bruises blooming under your skin, I watched you bleed as they took you, over and over again. It was fascinating and I want to see you do it again.”

“Yes, because that’s going to make me want to come with you,” Stiles said, feeling his heart beating faster in his ribcage.

The Alpha heard it, too. He smiled, and it was then that Stiles could see that the years had made him batshit insane. “I want to watch you bleed,” the Alpha whispered again, like he was losing what little self-control he had in Stiles’s presence. “I can’t wait to see it. Most of the human soldiers that we get are so boring, they obey all of their orders like good little men, looking to please the Director, but you wouldn’t be that way. You would fight it with everything you had until you were dead. I want to watch.”

“Oh, let me think about this,” Stiles said, glaring at the crazy centuries old Alpha sitting at the table in a small, locally owned coffee shop. “No, I don’t think that I will.”

Steve snarled, his fangs coming out, and he lunged across the table, but then he paused as he stared over Stiles’s right shoulder.

Stiles didn’t care what was behind him, he wasn’t taking his eyes off the werewolf in front of him. Steve stood up, brushed his long white hair back, and turned and walked away like he was going for a stroll down the street. 

Stiles turned around, staring at two men in suits who studied him, their eyes calm. “Um, thanks, I think,” Stiles said.

They continued staring at Stiles, so he grabbed his backpack and scrambled to his Jeep. He tore out of the bookstore’s parking lot, praying that his transmission wouldn’t die as he shifted the gear shaft sloppily. He drove straight to the Hale house because he knew his father was at work and he desperately didn’t want to be alone at that moment in time. If he were being honest with himself, which he wasn’t ever comfortable doing, it was also because being around Derek made him feel safe.

He was so relieved to see Derek’s Camaro sitting in front of his house that he almost cried. He sat in his Jeep, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, and then he casually walked up to the house as best he could. He knocked on Derek’s front door, but had to stop midway when Derek opened it, looking concerned.

“Stiles,” Derek said, looking behind him, “Why do you smell like fear?”

“I hate your werewolf nose,” Stiles said.

Derek raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“I snuck away from my bodyguards, went to a coffee shop, and had a cup of joe with Steve,” Stiles said.

Derek glared at him. He pulled him into the house and into the kitchen, where he sat Stiles down and started moving around and gathering food stuffs.

“Steve was kind enough to offer me a free ride to college,” Stiles said, “As long as I would entertain him.”

“You are pretty entertaining,” Derek said vaguely, “how specific did he get when describing this entertainment to you?”

“He wanted to torture me, like the test,” Stiles said, feeling himself becoming detached again. “He said he had watched the video, and that he wanted to see it in real life.”

Derek’s hand broke the mug that it had been holding, and Stiles watched as shards of pottery flew about the kitchen. He accepted the mug of tea that Derek quickly picked up and sat in front of him while he cleaned up the mess in his kitchen. Not that it was easy to discern the not-mess from what was actually a mess, because it was still a burnt-out shell, but the point was Derek was keeping his hands busy.

“They kept a video of what they did to you?” Derek asked, his green eyes flashing as he glanced up at Stiles with what was an otherwise emotionless face.

“Apparently,” Stiles said, “I wonder if it makes for good Saturday night viewing among the Alpha crowd.”

Derek’s eyes flashed red, and his claws came out. Stiles should have registered that he might be in danger, but he was so detached from everything that he just took a sip of the tea that Derek handed him.

“This is really good tea,” Stiles commented.

Derek turned his back to Stiles. “So you thought you would come over here and what, Stiles, rub it in my face that you got away from everyone and got threatened again?”

“No,” Stiles said, “I wanted away from everyone… because sometimes I just have to be alone. I came over here because youmakemefeelsafe,” Stiles said in a rush of words.

Some of the tension drained out of Derek’s shoulders with Stiles’s confession. “Next time you have to be alone, tell me. I’ll make sure that you get your alone time, but I’ll be close enough for you to call out if Steve decides to have coffee with you again.”

“Oh, I should tell you, one of the GITS was there today, too. Steve was going to attack me, but he stopped because one of the GITS was behind me…”

“What the fuck is a GITS, Stiles?” Derek asked, but he didn’t sound very mad.

“Acronym for Guys In The Suits?” Stiles asked.

Derek nodded. “Fine, GITS it is… did you come up with it yourself?” Derek asked, turning back around with his own cup of tea.

“No, it was Boyd’s creation,” Stiles said with a smile.

“Oh, that makes it even better,” Derek said. “Did the… GITS say anything to you?”

“Nope, just stared at me and then I took off like the freakin’ coward that I am…” Stiles mumbled the last part, but Derek heard it anyway.

“You are not a coward,” Derek said, moving to stand in front of Stiles again and jerk his chin up so that he had to look Derek in the eye. “You left because you are smart and you realized you made a mistake. There is nothing in that scenario that indicates that you are a coward.”

Stiles felt himself blushing at Derek’s scant praise for making the right decision after a wrong one. He wished that he was a different person who didn’t screw up all the time, but with Derek staring him in the eyes trying to convince Stiles that he wasn’t a coward… nope, it still wasn’t working. “You know why I didn’t kill those guys?” Stiles asked.

Derek looked at him, waiting. 

“I didn’t have enough guts to end another person’s life. I didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing to me, I didn’t know if someone else was forcing them to do it. I just let it happen, thinking that they would quit soon enough…”

Derek sighed, and then he pulled Stiles into his arms. “You think too much. Also, that doesn’t make you a coward. Cowards take the easy way out, no matter if it is the right one or not. You’re the type that won’t make a final decision like that unless it is absolutely the last course of action that you can take.”

“I didn’t have to kill them, I didn’t have to become a murderer after what they did to my mom,” Stiles whispered into Derek’s neck.

“You aren’t…” Derek paused, thinking. “You might have killed them Stiles, but you aren’t a murderer. You didn’t plan their deaths, you didn’t kidnap them and torture them for days on end. You aren’t a murderer. When soldiers go on the battlefield, they have to kill people. Killing isn’t the same as murdering, and you can’t let them take that from you after everything else that they took. No court in America would prosecute you for your actions.”

“Derek, you don’t…” Stiles paused, knowing that Derek probably did understand. He pushed his way out of Derek’s arms, thinking that they were a comfort that he didn’t deserve. He looked at Derek, and he wanted Derek to blame him for his decisions. He wanted Derek to judge him. “Derek…”

Derek just pulled Stiles back into a hug. “If you’re looking for me to blame you, it’s not going to happen. You could probably stab me in the back, and I still wouldn’t blame you.”

Stiles buried his face in Derek’s neck. “You’re not right, you know that?”

“I’ve heard it from one or two other people before,” Derek laughed.

“You’re kind of a good Alpha,” Stiles said, feeling tears start to fall down his face.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Derek said, “I’d hate to think that everyone would want to be in my pack or something.”

“Liar,” Stiles said, his voice catching on a sob.

Derek didn’t say anything, even though Stiles could hear other people coming into the house. He wasn’t quite ready to give up Derek’s arms though, so he waited for what felt like forever before he pulled away. It wasn’t long enough, and Stiles desperately wished everyone else would just go away so that he could have Derek to himself for just a moment longer. 

He was surprised then, when Jackson pulled him into his arms after Derek let go. “Don’t lie to me again,” Jackson said gruffly, and Stiles cried on Jackson for a while as the rest of the pack unpacked fast food bags and passed them around. They were all quiet, letting Stiles have his time to get it out, and Derek was directing them through distributing the food and breaking up a fight between Scott and Isaac while Lydia and Allison were talking about the pros and cons of pointy toed shoes. Peter was making some sort of inappropriate remark towards Boyd, and Erica came to Boyd’s defense with some sort of emasculating comment that Peter laughed off.

Chris Argent came with battle plans, and it was about that time that Jackson let Stiles go with a quick kiss on the forehead. He stared into Stiles’s eyes, while Argent was talking battle tactics and weaknesses, of which there couldn’t have been many. “You let me cry all over you, and you think that I wouldn’t understand that you needed to get away from everyone? Really?”

“Sorry Jackson…”

“No, I don’t care if you are having nightmares about My Little Pony, next time you tell me what the issue is and I’ll take care of it,” Jackson growled at him. “Even if it means I have to decapitate rainbow colored unicorns. I’m going to do it, you understand?”

Stiles laughed a little. “And people say I’m random.”

“Whatever, asshole,” Jackson said. He wet a paper towel in the kitchen sink and then scrubbed Stiles’s face in an attempt to clean him up, but he wasn’t very good at it. “You look like shit.”

Stiles let him at mop his face for a while, and then they walked into the living room where everyone else was. Jackson immediately picked Lydia up and held her in his lap, and he looked at the seat that she had been saving for him as if he expected Stiles to sit in it, so he awkwardly did. Scott moved away from Allison and sat next to Stiles, putting his head on his knee, although Allison followed Scott almost immediately.

Argent looked at him, but it was with respect, something that Stiles was not used to. He kept lecturing the pack on hunter tactics, and then he quit for a while. “Allison told me that you’ve started calling your stalkers GITS?” he asked.

Stiles nodded. “Boyd’s fault,” he pointed over at Boyd, who just grinned at being blamed for something so silly.

“Well, I’ve done some research on them,” Argent said, “I can’t find anything about them and only one person has any information on creatures that smell like ozone. It isn’t very conclusive, so I’m waiting for them to get back with me after they confirm their suspicions.”

Stiles nodded his head, and they went back to tactics. It was easier, now that everyone was more aware of what everyone else was capable of. They distributed themselves a lot more sensibly, in Stiles opinion, when they were talking about formations. Derek, Scott, and Jackson were most definitely their heaviest fighters, and Boyd and Isaac and Erica were paired off with them. Lydia and Allison were a group, and Argent and the sheriff were going to work together. Stiles and Danny were going to be a group, but they were expected to be with whoever was closest to them at the time. Dr. Deaton and Mrs. McCall, although they weren’t there planning with them, were expected to stay out of the line of fire and as they were the healers of the group everyone had to know where they were at all times.

Argent presented them with earpieces for their cell phones. It was necessary, he said, that they all be able to have their hands free in case there was a fight.

The night wore on, and by the time each and every one of them could recite where they were supposed to be depending on how the Alphas attacked in at least twenty different situations verbatim, Argent started packing his things up to go. He had already briefed the sheriff on the positions, so he told them he was going home to get some sleep, and that everyone else should, too. He told them all that even though he wasn’t their parent, they should be aware that he had plenty of guns that they all knew he was capable of using. Stiles had figured out by then that was how Argent said that he cared about them.

Everyone started breaking up to get themselves home. Stiles knew he needed to go too, because he had homework and he wanted to read his new book a little bit more, but by the time he had gathered his stuff up from the kitchen, everyone had disappeared except for Derek. Derek was staring around the now empty room with a look of long-suffering patience, and Stiles was pretty embarrassed that he was the only one still there.

Stiles figured that the pack just wanted him to embarrass himself in front of Derek a little more. 

“So um, thanks, about earlier,” Stiles said, pulling his backpack up to his shoulder.

Derek nodded his head kind of stiffly, still looking around at where there were like, a hundred people just a few minutes ago. He looked as lost as Stiles knew he himself did. “Yeah, anytime,” Derek was kind of scowling for some reason.

“Okay, so… see you?” Stiles asked.

Derek nodded. He looked at Stiles and opened his mouth for a minute, but then he closed it again, the sound of the enamel on his teeth clacking together kind of rang in the empty, burnt out house. “Call me,” he growled, “if anything happens.”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and then he moved towards the door.

“Idiots,” Stiles heard Isaac say from the top of the stairs, but he couldn’t figure out why he was saying that and all he wanted to do was go home and get out of the uncomfortable situation he found himself in. So he did.


	9. Chapter 9

The creature had cold golden irises, almost metallic gold, set in a field of sky blue where the whites would normally be, and it was staring at Stiles in a manner that could have been human if it wasn’t just a little… off. Stiles couldn’t figure out quite what it was that told him that whatever was standing in front of him wasn’t just completely human with weird eyes, but it’s movements were jerky and it stood a little odd. “Can’t you remember?” it asked, but it didn’t move its mouth when it talked.

“Remember what?” Stiles asked.

The creature jerked again, and Stiles realized that it reminded him of a bird. “Can’t you remember?”

Stiles jerked awake, but he wasn’t gasping for breath. He stared into the darkness of his room, taking in the familiar landmarks and mess that made up his life. He settled back into his pillows, trying to get comfortable with himself, but he felt gross because he was covered in a cold sweat. He tossed the blankets aside and hauled himself out of his bed, grabbed a pair of boxers from his bureau and stumbled his way into the bathroom. A cold shower was always appropriate after a disturbing dream, no matter what anyone said.

Stiles washed himself off, glad for the clean smell of soap. It was something simple, but it usually calmed him down enough to go on to whatever he could force himself to concentrate on next. He snuck down the stairs in his boxers, and fixed a snack. It was four o’clock in the morning, that qualified as snack time in any sane person’s mind, he reassured himself. In any case, at the rate he was losing weight, it shouldn’t matter too much how often he ate or what he ate. 

He headed back up to his room with graham crackers, nutella, and a couple of packs of Capri Sun. There was enough sugar there to bring down a horse, as long as that horse had ADHD and therefore reverse metabolism. He hoped it would knock him out, but he was a little scared that it would only make him sleepy. If there was one thing that made him roll his eyes, it was how kids would claim to not be able to eat sugar because they were already hyper enough because of their ADHD. ADHD kids didn’t get high off of sugar, it made them pass out. That’s why they gave ADHD kids speed. 

Stiles stared at his Adderall bottle, trying to figure out if he could get away without taking his prescription over the weekend. It was kind of a dangerous time for him to not be able to focus, or as his case went, not be able to stop hyper-focusing. Stiles was normal and hyper until you put him in front of a book or the television or his computer, and then he would literally lose hours and not be able to hear anyone talk to him at all if he wasn’t on his medication. 

It had confused his mother for the longest time. She kept saying that no one on her side of the family acted that detached, and his dad said no one on his side of the family acted that hyper, and they went back and forth on it for a while, trying to decide what was wrong with Stiles. It wasn’t until he was nine or ten years old that they decided to go to a psychiatrist, who had given Stiles some Ritalin (which he really, truly hated because of the way it made him feel) and Stiles had almost immediately fallen asleep. The psychiatrist deemed the test a complete win, and ever since then Stiles had to concentrate on remembering his pills every time he woke up. Skipping doses didn’t mean a whole lot, but if he forgot about them for too long he had to build up a tolerance to it again and he was a complete ass to everyone he met. He wasn’t particularly fond of the mood swings that he went through on the medication. 

Stiles realized that he had been staring at the bottle for almost forty minutes, and he figured it was time to take another pill. 

He put a search into the Google engine on golden eyes, and he clicked on the Images tab so that it would just bring up pictures. He didn’t want to read about anything until he could pick out what he saw from his memory because sometimes he would get distracted by something with a cool name and he would lose track of what he was doing. 

Predictably, nothing helped him. There were lots of pictures of birds and dogs and quite a few of girls in skanky eye shadow, but nothing that helped him identify what he was looking for. He shut his laptop off, noticing that it was 5:30 on a Saturday morning, and then he went to his closet to go through the books he collected. He figured that he didn’t need to hide his little occult library anymore, so he moved all of his copies of his childhood books from his shelf into the box that he hid his more useful reference books in, put his reference books on his shelf, and then took the box upstairs into the attic.

He walked towards the back of the attic, and then he remembered the book that had told Derek what the symbol on his door meant. He put the box of books down and headed back to the steamer trunk that had been his mother’s and he realized that his heart was beating just a little faster.

He didn’t want to go through the trunk. He really, really didn’t. But curiosity was ever his downfall, so he flipped the lid open and stared into the contents that his dad had packed up a few months after his mother died.

There was a journal, which Stiles put aside, and there were old concert tee-shirts to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and The Cranberries. His mom had good taste in music, at least, Stiles smiled to himself. He put a tiny pair of jeans aside, his mom was on the skinny side despite being some badass CIA agent, and he put aside her badge that he was pretty sure his dad should have turned in after she had died. He found some old CDs that he put on top of the journal, and the trunk was empty. 

Stiles stared at the bottom for a minute, and then he rolled his eyes. Of course there was a false bottom, his mom was a freaking CIA agent, it wasn’t like they were going to leave answers out where anyone could find them. 

He knocked on the bottom panel, realizing that it was about three inches higher than the outside would indicate. He felt along the sides and smiled when he found a thin line of fishing wire and he pulled on it.

The bottom raised up, revealing a Third Generation Glock 17c, a pistol that Stiles knew would have been issued to CIA agents in the late ‘90s. Stiles didn’t touch it because he was more interested in the three books that lay flat on the bottom of the trunk.

He pulled them out, and then carefully replaced the lid with the Glock still in the trunk. He put the clothing back, making sure that it was still folded exactly the same, and he carried the books, the CDs, and the journal back down the stairs.

He ripped the CDs to his laptop while he opened the books on his bed.

They were all in Polish, so it took Stiles a little longer to figure out what he was reading.

Most of them appeared to be handwritten, but with multiple people’s handwriting. He smiled to see his mother’s messy printing at the end of the book that always ended up in sloppy cursive at the end of her paragraphs, like she was in too much of a hurry to keep the horrid block lettering up. The first book detailed some of her cases as a CIA agent.

Another book was filled with letters to and from her parents, who lived in Connecticut. They mentioned family members who would come over to visit, and they sounded thrilled when one of them would decide to stay in the States for a while. Stiles briefly wondered why he wasn’t closer with his mom’s parents; he had his grandfather’s name and they had sent presents every single year until she had died, and then they seemed to cut off all contact except for the occasional phone call.

It hurt, not having his grandparents around, when they were the only ones who remembered his mother the way that he did. He wished that they would have stayed in closer contact. He wished he felt comfortable enough to call them now that strange things were happening, but he wasn’t sure how much of his dad’s history he was allowed to repeat. 

It was almost eight o’clock in the morning when Jackson crawled through his window. Stiles thought that maybe he should be locking that thing, but it wasn’t like it was going to stop an intruder of the werewolf variety, so he dismissed that thought. Jackson came and sat on the bed and grabbed one of Stiles’s mom’s books. “What is this?” he asked.

“A book,” Stiles said.

“Thanks, retard. I mean, what language is this?”

“Polish,” Stiles said. “Mom wrote most of her personal stuff in Polish.”

“Your mom wrote this?” Jackson asked, reverently placing the book back on the bed.

“Yeah,” Stiles said.

“I wish I had some of my mom’s things,” Jackson said quietly.

It took Stiles a moment to remember that Jackson’s mother was dead, too. He realized that he hung out with a pack of kids with dead mothers: Derek, Isaac, Allison, Jackson, and Stiles all had dead moms. That was kind of a morbid thought.

“Do you ever think about what they would think about us now?” Jackson asked. “Do you think that they would have been proud of us?”

“Yes,” Stiles said without hesitation. “Our moms would spend hours trying to outbrag each other on how awesome we are, if they knew each other.” Stiles shifted so that he could lean against his headboard with Jackson.

“You really think that? Even though I got turned into a werewolf because I had to be the best at everything?” Jackson asked, and he sounded like such a little boy that Stiles wanted to hold him. 

So he put his arms around Jackson. Because he could. “Yes,” Stiles said. “Your mom would have wanted you to be a werewolf so you could open the pickle jar for her, and lift her up so she could dust the top of the cabinets. And then she would yell at you to go take a shower because you smelled like dog.”

Jackson laughed at Stiles. “Dork,” he said.

“Yup,” Stiles agreed, because as ludicrous as it sounded, it was what Jackson needed to hear.

“Okay, we’re going to go practice some Lacrosse, and we figured you’d want to join in,” Jackson said, pulling free of Stiles’s arms so that he didn’t have to acknowledge that he had been looking for a hug.

Whatever. Stiles could play along. “Sure, let’s go.”

Stiles hadn’t ever been in Jackson’s Porsche before, and he was happy when Jackson didn’t snap at him to quit touching the buttons. Because there were so many buttons, and they all needed pushed or fiddled with, and Stiles loved pushing buttons. It was a thing, and no one had a right to judge him for it.

They arrived at a field where most of the Lacrosse team was already there, practicing. Stiles was happy to see Derek, even though he was skulking along the border of the trees like a creeper. 

The boys seemed happy enough to spend most of the morning goofing off, when they played for fun rather than competition it seemed to bring out a different side of them. They were more playful and more forgiving of mistakes, more willing to share technique. Stiles wished that they did this more often, and he was a little confused as to why they were doing this now. All it took was one look between Scott and Jackson to figure out exactly what had happened.

His friends were trying to make things better by distracting him. It was like, the best day of his entire life.

Of course, that was until Steve and a whole bunch of Alphas showed up to practice.

“Really?” Stiles asked.

“That’s them?” Scott asked as Jackson crowded in close to Stiles. Isaac, Boyd, and Danny caught on pretty quickly that things weren’t all the way kosher, and they quickly told everyone that it was time to head on home. It didn’t take too much convincing, because it was lunch time and the weather was taking a turn for the worse.

Steve and five other Alphas were making their way across the field for Stiles, and Derek was quickly coming up behind him. His presence was probably the only thing that was keeping Stiles from hyperventilating. Facing Steve on his own was bad enough, but with five others behind him? Stiles didn’t have enough Alprazolam to handle that.

“Stiles,” Steve greeted him. “God, your little pack… they’re so cute!”

Scott growled, but Isaac kicked him in the ankle so at least it wasn’t like a bunch of betas and a really young Alpha was challenging centuries old Alphas or anything. Steve seemed to think that the whole thing was funny, but the rest of the Alpha pack were wearing poker faces.

“Have you thought about my offer at all? There are some really good schools…”

“Really, no thanks Steve,” Stiles said, “I’m good here.”

“Stiles, I really don’t want to hurt your friends,” Steve said. “They are truly adorable, and I’d hate to have to kill them.”

Derek made it to Stiles’s side, and he stepped in front of his pack. “It’s time for you to go,” he said, flashing his red eyes. “This is my pack, and I’ll not have you taking any of them.”

“God, you just get better looking in the light, don’t you?” Steve asked Derek. “I thought you were hot when we were at your house, but this light brings out so many different colors in your eyes. I probably wouldn’t dress you all in black though, it looks like you’re in mourning our something. And I would definitely shove you in a tanning bed for a while. You could use a little more sun.”

“You aren’t going to do anything at all with me,” Derek said, “because you are going to leave. This is my territory, and my pack, and you are breaking so many rules…”

“Ah yes, American werewolves and their rules. They seem to think that they’re important…”

“The rules were established for a reason,” a new voice said. It was lighter than air, and it came from one of the GITS standing behind Derek’s pack. “You would do well to remember that, Stephanus.”

Stiles was startled to see one so close to him, and he was briefly fascinated that he had the same color eyes as Stiles.

“Alexander, you have no right to be here,” Steve growled. “He is ours…”

“By what measure? He is my cousin, and therefore I claim closer kinship ties,” the GITS called Alexander replied. “Would you take him from us?”

“There’s only you,” one of Steve’s group sneered, but that face was quickly dropped when the five other GITS that Stiles had seen at the game seemed to appear from absolutely nowhere. The sky above them was turning dark with black clouds, and thunder and lightning made the earth tremble at their feet a little.

Steve backed down a little. “His father is one of ours…”

“We can discuss precedent if you choose,” Alexander said. “For example, when a certain Prince of Transylvania decided to leave your ranks and marry one of ours, we made him King of Poland, you do remember that don’t you? You should remember that we have little patience to be tested. I don’t think you have fought our kind for several hundred years, but if you would like a reminder of our swords…”

“This isn’t over,” Steve warned Stiles, “don’t think that by calling in your mother’s family that you can avoid us for your whole life.” And by saying that, he turned around and left.

Stiles turned around and looked at Alexander. “Cousin?”

Alexander looked down at Stiles, his long dark hair whipping in the wind, his golden eyes staring deep into Stiles’s. “Cousin,” Alexander said, with a somewhat sheepish smile.

“Why wouldn’t you ever talk to me then?” Stiles asked.

“What?” Alexander asked.

“You’ve been hanging around all this time, and you would never talk to me.”

The GITS all had the nerve to look a little surprised. “We thought you never saw us. We were trying to give you a normal childhood, without all of this,” Alexander made spastic sweeping motions with his hands, “to mess it up.”

“Dude, it’s genetic,” Jackson whispered to Scott, referring to Alexander’s hand motions that were so like Stiles’s random movements.

“What is all of this?” Stiles asked, imitating the same motions.

Thunder rent the air, and three of the GITS disappeared without comment.

“Why do you think these wolves are so protective of you and you of them? Why do you think that your mind works the way it does? I would think that you’ve done enough research to at least know what you are,” Alexander said. “We’ve seen you in the library often enough, with the right books…”

“Obviously I didn’t make the connection,” Stiles said. “What are you?”

Lightning struck a tree near the field, and another one of the GITS disappeared from sight. 

Alexander and the only GITS left frowned at each other. “We can’t stay for too much longer,” his companion said.

Alexander frowned. “Right,” he said. “I tell you what, Stiles, I’ll come to your house tonight. Right now,” and his companion was gone as another roll of thunder sounded overhead, “we need to go… de-stress after that little conversation we had with the Order. Tonight?” Alexander asked.

Stiles nodded dumbly. “Yeah, tonight,” he agreed, and Alexander disappeared.


	10. Chapter 10

Since there was a pool table and a projector hooked up to a couple of different game consoles in Jackson’s basement, and his parents had decided to spend the weekend at a spa in Vegas, the pack decided that was going to be their next destination after the unofficial Lacrosse practice was so rudely interrupted by werewolves and GITS and freak lightning. After they discovered that the glass doors to the basement also opened out to a pool, Scott declared that this was now their new official hang-out. It wasn’t that Derek’s burn out mansion wasn’t a blast to hang out with, but he decided that at least they didn’t have to worry about Stiles and Danny getting tetanus in Jackson’s basement.

Derek scowled at the assessment, but as he was sinking into a really squishy pale blue chair it didn’t carry the same weight as it usually did.

Stiles and Isaac were the only ones interested in the pool table, since the other boys were more interested in playing Mass Effect anyway, and the sound of recorded gunfire was only every so often interrupted by the soft clacking sound of balls being sunk into holes. 

“You’d think we didn’t get enough gratuitous violence in our daily lives or something,” Stiles commented.

“You play WoW,” Scott said, “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

“That’s educational,” Stiles protested.

“Only in our lives,” Danny said.

“See? Educational,” Stiles said, sinking in the five ball.

Danny gave up the game controller to Jackson, who proceeded to school Scott in painfully embarrassing ways, and made his way over to Isaac and Stiles to watch their game.

The games were played, and Scott handed his controller to Derek in defeat. Stiles beat Isaac, who handed over his cue to Danny.

They were all distracted by Derek owning Jackson on the video game.

“When did you have time to learn how to play video games?” Stiles asked.

“We had tournaments with the physics department at NYU,” Derek said.

“You went to NYU?” Stiles asked.

“Yup,” Derek said, shooting Jackson with a sniper rifle.

“What did you major in?” Stiles asked.

“Theoretical mathematics,” Derek said, shooting everyone on Jackson’s team while he waited for the other boy to respawn.

“What?” everyone looked at Derek.

“You’re smart?” Scott asked.

Derek rolled his eyes, but continued playing.

“Seriously?” Stiles asked.

“Yes Stiles, seriously,” Derek said, looking up at him. “I’m not done with my thesis for my graduate degree, though.”

Stiles stared at Derek, who had gone back to playing his game. It didn’t make sense, although he had seen Derek sitting in piles of books before. There was nothing to indicate whatsoever that Derek had been a math geek, ever. Of course, Lydia was a math geek too, but she never acted like it either. 

And of course, Stiles chose that moment in time to figure out that he was attracted to Derek. He liked smart people, and Derek was smart, and why was he figuring this out now? Did his educational achievements really matter when he was evaluating someone’s level of attractiveness? Or did they clue Stiles into realizing that Derek was kind of perfect for him? Not that Derek would ever like Stiles, because what kind of guy looked like him and was older than he was and was built like him and was a freakin’ math geek just like Stiles liked…

Stiles realized that Derek was another Lydia. Why couldn’t he just like someone that was on his level? 

Stiles handed his cue over to Scott. “I gotta get home,” he said. He walked over to the stairs in Jackson’s basement. “I have to go home and get ready for Alexander to come over.” If he was running away from the situation, well that just meant that Stiles was acting like Stiles. Nothing new there.

“You can’t go by yourself,” Derek announced. He struggled a little to get out of the fluffy seat, which was kind of funny to watch.

“It’s cool. I don’t live that far away…” Stiles protested.

“No, I’m not comfortable…”

“I’m fine!” Stiles said, angry. “You don’t have to babysit me all the time. I seriously live three miles away, it’s not a big deal.”

Jackson was frowning, and Scott was putting the pool cue on the rack to follow him, but Stiles just got out of the basement as quickly as he could. He remembered that he didn’t bring his Jeep, so he started walking home. If he noticed that Isaac was following him a few yards behind, he didn’t care. He needed to think.

It wasn’t a big gay surprise or anything that Stiles was attracted to Derek. Stiles kind of knew that there was always a possibility that he might at least be bi; there were too many interesting things on his harddrive that would have screamed he wasn’t strictly heterosexual to any casual observer. Besides, it wasn’t like all gay men had the best fashion sense in the world, it wasn’t a prerequisite that he know things like what was fashionable that season or the names of at least two different women’s shoe designers. There weren’t rules to being gay, besides the fact that you had to find someone of your own sex attractive.

And yeah, Stiles might have masturbated once or twice to the thought of Derek. He could admit that. Hell, he bet all the guys that he had just been hanging out with could admit that, not just Danny. Derek was just that type of guy. He was hot, painfully so at times, and just tortured enough to pull it off without being feminine at all. 

As Stiles got past the first mile between his and Jackson’s home, another thought hit him. He didn’t think that he was just attracted to Derek. He thought that it might have been a crush. 

Holy shit, he had a crush on Derek Hale. 

He did want to be around him all the time. He did kind of think he was the best at a lot of things. He did think that the man had a stupid smile, and stupid arms, and a ridiculously stupid set of abs, and his jeans fit him way too well to be real. Because he had a stupid ass, an ass that Stiles could probably bounce quarters off of, if he had the guts. But it wasn’t only that. Derek made him feel safe. He made him feel kind of important, too, even before all of this mess. He constantly challenged Stiles to do something, and he trusted Stiles, and he made him think. Stiles didn’t run into a whole lot of people that made him think, and that was a turn-on in itself. And to top everything else off, Derek had to be smart. 

Stiles thought that the realization that he had a crush on Derek only became apparent when it was obvious that Stiles had absolutely nothing to offer in this imaginary relationship that he had with him. Because he did kind of think of Derek as his, if he was being honest. He was Derek’s go-to man when shit got weird, or when Derek had problems expressing himself, he looked to Stiles to take over for him. 

Stiles wasn’t jaw-droppingly beautiful. He might have the boy-next-door look going for him pretty hard, but he and Derek weren’t in the same league. Stiles wasn’t old enough or mature enough to attract someone of Derek’s age. Stiles was a high school student, and Derek was majoring in theoretical freakin’ mathematics. What did Stiles know about game theory and relativist numbers? Pretty much nothing, except for that one little clip he had watched on Ted Talks, and the news he had read about the theoretical mathematics department from MIT getting banned from Las Vegas. 

If Stiles ever got banned from Las Vegas, he was pretty sure that it would be for tripping over the power cord at a casino and causing said casino to lose money from all those zombie slot playing maniacs over there.

Stiles kicked a rock on the sidewalk, and he was a mile away from his house. He didn’t see Isaac behind him anymore, and he figured the kid had decided that he was close enough to home to not worry about anymore.

Maybe he should choose a major in college that would impress Derek. What was he good at that would impress Derek? It wasn’t like the werewolf hadn’t seen everything and done everything. He had to be about the most jaded man that Stiles had ever come across. Why was he attracted to unobtainable people?

He was so deep in thought he didn’t even feel the cloth being wrapped around his nose and mouth before it was too late. Stiles briefly panicked, instantly having a flashback to when he was twelve years old, because this was what happened last time, too. Goddammit, Stiles thought, not afuckinggain.

When he woke up, he was confused about where he was. He tried to move, but he was tied to a chair again, and he wished that he would have gotten Chris Argent to show him how to get out of this situation. 

He rattled his hands, feeling the handcuffs biting into the skin on his wrists. He desperately hoped that he wasn’t going to have to break his thumbs to get out of this, but if anyone came near him he wasn’t going to hesitate this time. He didn’t have any reason to stay in control this time, he realized. Deep down, he knew that he had no one on his side who wanted him to stay in control, if it meant that he wouldn’t be hurt again.

“I’ve dreamed about this day for years now,” Steve’s super creepy voice came from behind Stiles on his right side.

“God, get a fucking life,” Stiles snarled. “Seriously, macramé is a very stimulating hobby, I’ve heard. And there are tons of people who swear by knitting.”

Steve laughed. “You’re going to be so much fun to break.”

“Didn’t you get the office memo?” Stiles asked, looking up into Steve’s creepy pale eyes. “I’m fucking broken already.”

“Oh baby,” Steve said, and Stiles realized he didn’t like hearing anyone but Derek calling him baby, “You’re nowhere near broken. I’ve seen broken before, because I like to break things.”

“Let me go, and I’ll let you live,” Stiles said, bored with this conversation.

“Threats already? We haven’t even started,” Steve looked like he disapproved.

Stiles said nothing. He was done talking.

“You know nothing about yourself,” Steve said. “Those little puppies can’t teach you a single thing about you. I however, know every single one of your strengths and weaknesses. For example, your handcuffs? Completely made out of gold and encrusted with amber. Did you know that would drain your strength?”

“I’m really not good with fashion,” Stiles said, and wished he would stop talking.

“They really are beautiful handcuffs. Maybe when I break your arms you’ll be able to see them. But I can teach you everything you need to know about fashion,” Steve said, crouching down in front of him.

Stiles tried to kick him. 

“Oh, I kind of locked your legs to the chair, too. Did I forget to mention that? And the chair is made out of pure ebony, but I put some more gold in for structural purposes. Do you know what you are yet?”

“Apparently some kind of weird ass creature that doesn’t like gold?” Stiles asked.

“So clever you are, really,” Steve said. “But no, gold is neutral. It doesn’t like magic at all, Stiles, and you are essentially a creature of magic. It’s a rather worthless metal, truth be told. You can’t curse it, you can’t haunt it

“You know, my cousin Alexander said that he was coming over tonight, and it sounds like he’s going to spill the beans. You don’t have to prolong this with information temptation.”

Steve looked momentarily impatient. He raised his hand and backhanded Stiles across the face. “You aren’t doing this right!” he shouted, and then he stared at the handprint he left across Stiles’s face, and he immediately looked contrite. “You have to play this right,” he said soothingly, rubbing his thumb across the handprint. “This has to go right, why aren’t you playing this like last time?”

“Because this is not a game,” Stiles said. “This is kidnapping.”

“No, no, no,” Steve said, backing away from Stiles. “This is not how it is supposed to go…”

There were other Alphas in the background, and Stiles blinked a few times so that he could see what they were doing. They looked like they were standing over a pit of fire with a cauldron hanging from an old fashioned tripod. Stiles tried to ignore them, but he could feel his heart sinking.

“Now that’s better,” Steve said with a smile. “I’ve been wanting to hear your heart stutter just like that. It’s just like I imagined, only so much sweeter. ..” Steve kept talking, and Stiles tried to pay attention, he really did, but after a while crazy talk just kind of blended into a long stream of incoherent nonsense. Instead, Stiles wondered if losing control would even work, if maybe his control was based entirely on the fact that he was some kind of magical being. It would be nice if Alexander were here to hand him a Dummies Guide for Magical Creatures book or something. In any case, the gold was effectively keeping him from pulling off the same stunt as last time. Stiles was more than ready to lose control, if only so that he could go do something else because this was really boring.

Steve was still rambling, walking over to the cauldron, and that’s when Stiles started paying attention.

“Gold of course can’t cause any lasting damage to a werewolf,” Steve smiled at him as he stuck his hand in the pot and his fingers came away coated in the molten shiny stuff, “But I’ve found that it does interesting things to your kind…”

Stiles realized he should have been paying attention.

He also wished that the cauldron was just a little bit further away.

Steve was smiling as he walked over to Stiles, smiling while he took his fingers and swiped them down his cheek like he was caressing them, and then smiling as Stiles screamed as he felt his skin burning underneath the gold. “That’s more like it.”

Stiles screamed, loud and long, and he felt like he had no energy, nothing left in reserve to fight this. He couldn’t hear anything else Steve was saying because the sound of the skin on his face bubbling under the rapidly cooling gold that was stuck there was too distracting. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, pounding so fast that it scared him. 

Steve was waiting for something, and then when he went to stick his hand in the cauldron again Stiles screamed before he could even walk over. His hand traced patterns down Stiles’s chest, melting the fabric of his shirt into his skin. Stiles desperately wished he could lose consciousness. 

That was when Derek showed up, Scott and Jackson and possibly some other people in tow. Stiles wasn’t real sure who was there, just that there was a lot of noise. He could only see Derek, see him wolfing out and moving around quickly, see the Alphas scattering as something that sounded like thunder rent through the air. He saw Derek’s claws ripping through the golden cuffs shackling him, and when Derek picked him up in his arms he fainted.

When he came to, he was in his bed and the pack was camped out in his room, on the floor and on the bed. They were all sleeping, and Dr. Deaton was leaning against the doorframe of his room.

Stiles had to slide his way out of bed, and part of that was moving Derek’s very heavy arm from around his waist. He kind of didn’t want to move because he hurt so bad, but he wanted to know what was going on even more.

Dr. Deaton went downstairs with him, and he immediately began pulling out food for Stiles to eat. “You’re going to need the energy,” he said.

It hurt Stiles’ face when he chewed, but he could allow that Dr. Deaton might know what he was talking about. He didn’t even know what food was put in front of him, he just ate it.

“I’m interested to know Stiles, and this is purely for personal reasons, but how exactly do you feel about Derek?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“What?” Stiles asked, food hanging out of his mouth. 

“Never mind, it’s not important. What is important is that you need to know that the gold has scarred you. I don’t know of anything that is going to get rid of those marks on your face and your chest.”

“Oh well,” Stiles said, trying not to be too upset because he didn’t want anyone to think that he was vain, “Not screwing too much up, I suppose.” It really hurt to talk, and Stiles traced the side of his face, flinching when he came into contact with the metal that hadn’t come off yet.

“It’s going to be very painful as you are healing. If you need any painkillers, I can get you some.”

“Or,” Alexander said, coming into the kitchen, “I can teach you how to deal with pain.”

“Okay, first of all,” Stiles said, ignoring how the skin on his face protested when he moved it to talk, “What am I? Because I don’t think that after having molten gold plastered to my skin, I should be up and moving around if I was human.”

“You’re mostly human,” Alexander said, “for the meantime. But something must have happened…” he stopped talking for a moment.

“Okay…” Stiles said, getting really impatient.

“Did you happen to fall in love with someone?” Alexander asked him.

Stiles looked up at Derek, who had just come down the stairs, and he was rather alarmed by the look of desperation that flashed across his face at Alexander’s question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry it took me so long to update! My work has been insane, and I'm about to start another 24 hour shift. I'll try to get another chapter up today, but if it doesn't happen I might not be able to update again until Sunday.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, apparently working for 24 hours doesn't mean that I can sleep anymore when I get off. To top that off, my customer still hasn't given me the file I need to go back to work (for only 13 hours this time) so I'm stuck waiting for a phone call on about three hours sleep. I thought it would be okay if I just wrote some stuff down, then it turned into another chapter... so it's earlier or maybe later... (I'm not sure at this point, I'm a little exhausted) than I promised. Hope you don't mind, and please forgive any typos! I found a beta, but I really haven't used her at all yet, so none of this is her fault!

“What?” Stiles asked, immediately self-conscious. “What are you talking about?”

“It isn’t important,” Dr. Deaton said, “That needs to be resolved by itself. It’s more important that Stiles understand what he is, and how falling in love with help him.”

“Sorry,” Alexander said, raking his hand through his thick black hair that Stiles realized would look exactly like his own if he would grow it out. “Just wanted to know who it was.”

Stiles felt relief, although he noticed that Derek hadn’t relaxed any. 

“Have a seat Derek, since some of this is your history anyway. I’m going to use werewolves as a comparison example, since that’s what Stiles is familiar with.” Alexander instructed Derek.

Derek came in and sat down, and the sheriff started making them some coffee.

“As you know, werewolves are the children of Fenrir, the son of Loki, the son of Laufey,” Alexander started explaining.

Stiles nodded, and his dad looked really tired as he sat down on the other side of him.

“There was a battle between the children of Loki and the followers of Thor, a long time ago,” Alexander said. “Stiles, your ancestors on your father’s side were some of Thor’s most loyal followers, so when they were almost decimated by the werewolves, Thor touched each and every one of them. They became what is known as a Berserker, warriors famous for fighting with reckless abandon with no care for life whatsoever. It is a fugue state, and one that is very dangerous. Leaders of many states stole children of Berserkers often and raised them to use as private bodyguards because they are such furious warriors. I wouldn’t go against a Berserker, because I have seen them fight.”

“I thought that the Berserk stage had something to do with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome?” Stiles asked. “I thought it was something that only happened to people who were mentally traumatized?”

“Psychiatrists now diagnose the Berserk rage as PTSD, that is correct,” Alexander said, “But that doesn’t make someone a Berserker. What old soldiers go through is a pale imitation of what you are capable of. Also, if you have fallen in love, it is harder to get into a Berserker rage, although not impossible and at times it is harder to control. It is much the same with werewolves, when they are in love they find they have a much harder time fighting as furiously unless their loved ones are threatened.”

Stiles nodded. He had seen the difference in Scott after he had fallen in love with Allison. “So, I’m half Berserker,” Stiles said, “What’s the other half.”

“Loki had another child,” Alexander said. “She is named Hel.”

“Hel, also called the dragon, ruler over the place of the same name, appropriated by Christian dogma as another name for Perdition,” Stiles recited.

Alexander nodded. “Her daughters are the Valkyrie, given to the goddess Freya to choose which warriors live and die in battle.”

Stiles nodded. 

“The Valkyrie often married leaders of men, as they too were subjects of love. Their children are very rare, Stiles. It is difficult for us to have children,” Alexander clarified.

Stiles stared at Alexander for a minute. “You’re saying we’re Valkyrie?” Stiles asked.

“It is what makes your Berserk so hard to get, and it is what makes you more powerful once you have reached it. If you were trained correctly, you would be able to access that. Any of your family could train you, and your mother was doing well before she was killed.”

“You have been watching me since my mother’s death,” Stiles said. “Was it to make sure…”

“We wanted to be sure that you were safe, that you wouldn’t be kidnapped again,” Alexander said. “We wanted you to have a normal childhood. It isn’t often that one of our own is born, you see. Your mother probably thought that she would never be able to get pregnant, especially married as she was to a Berserker.”

“How rare is it to have children?” Stiles asked. 

“Besides your grandparents, there are only six of us,” Alexander answered. “There were once one hundred of us, but through the years we have diminished.

“And the thunder and lightning when you appear, is that part of your powers?” Stiles asked.

“That is Thor,” Alexander answered. “He is not happy that his Berserkers are being held as slaves by the Order of the Dragon. He would be most displeased should they take you. He has… agreed to be our ally in protecting you from them.”

“A god knows of my existence?” Stiles asked, feeling a little bit self-conscious on that note.

“You are one of a kind,” Peter said, entering the kitchen from where Stiles assumed he was lurking in the living room. “I offered you the bite, didn’t I?”

“You what?” Derek asked, and Stiles could see that his hackles were raised.

“It wouldn’t have taken, anyway,” Alexander shrugged. “There isn’t enough human in Stiles for Fenrir’s Curse to latch onto.” Alexander paused, taking a sip of the drink the sheriff had placed in front of him. “So I’ve told you about what you are. Now, are you in love?”

“Why is this significant?” Stiles asked.

“It’s as important as a werewolf taking a mate,” Alexander smiled at him. “I want to know who to welcome into my family.”

“Um…” Stiles blushed. “I really don’t know,” and honestly, was he really going to talk about it with Derek sitting right there? Did he care enough about Derek to consider it love? “I mean, I was in love with Lydia for years…”

“She’s beautiful,” Alexander agreed. “But you weren’t ever really in love with her. Admiration, respect, appreciation, it is a good start, but for love to be real it has to be returned.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, “In that case, we can assume that I am not.”

Alexander studied Stiles for a moment. “The fact that you were perfectly controlled, even with you being covered in gold argues that the person you care about returns your emotions.”

Stiles heartbeat quickened at that, enough that the werewolves in the room looked over at him. He desperately didn’t want to talk about the big huge gay elephant in the room in front of all these people, so he changed the subject. “So, why am I affected by gold?”

“Every species on the planet has a weakness,” Alexander said. “With werewolves, you have to use pure silver. If you mix it with anything, a werewolf can shrug it off, but unadulterated silver is a weakness. This is why silver bullets never work, because in order for a bullet to work it has to be harder than silver. The thing that werewolves have to look out for is silver tipped swords. You understand?”

Stiles nodded. 

“If I were to put a chain of pure gold on you, you would not be able to move. Eventually, you would die. Our other weaknesses include the fact that it is almost impossible for us to have children.”

“So human weakness?” Stiles asked.

“A human weakness is life itself. They die.”

“We don’t die?” Stiles asked. That was scary.

“We can be killed, but no, we don’t die.”

“So, how old are you?”

“I don’t know,” Alexander said. “Age doesn’t really mean a whole lot to us. I didn’t keep track, and when the Christians came to our country and they wanted to start counting everything, I still didn’t find it terribly important. I remember the Batory, in case you were wondering, when he married our cousin. You know they only had one child, even though she was over fifty when they married.”

“So… how old are my grandparents?” Stiles asked.

“They are young, compared to us. I remember them being born. I knew their mothers, who were killed in World War II by Hitler, who was very irritated that he could not have their power.”

Stiles suddenly had an idea that made him very uncomfortable. “So, how many times in history as a Berserker and a Valkyrie had a child?”

“Never, that beyond the Batory and the Queen,” Alexander said, smiling. It looked like the appreciated where Stiles’s train of thought had gone.

No one else seemed to catch on, though, and Stiles wondered if it was just his overactive imagination.

“How nearly improbable would it have been for my mother and father to have met under normal circumstances?” Stiles asked the same question in a different way.

Still, no one was getting the same dawning look of horror that was currently happening in Stiles’s mind. 

Alexander nodded his head, as if he saw where Stiles was going. “There aren’t many people who would have come to this conclusion as quickly as you have.”

“So, basically speaking, I’m the living manifestation of an alliance between Thor and Hel against Loki?”

“Very good,” Alexander said. 

“I’m a pawn in a game between gods?” Stiles asked.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Derek asked.

Peter seemed as flabbergasted as Stiles felt, but Stiles could see him putting the pieces together. 

Stiles snuck a look at his dad, who just really looked tired. He decided that the best course of action was to simply explain to Derek how he had figured it out. “Gods don’t make children or super powered creatures for fun. Everything to them is a power play, in every single story they are in. Every super powered creature serves a purpose, which is why there aren’t that many of them. Part of the danger of that is super powered creatures can threaten the power of a god, which is what I assume the Alpha pack is doing?”

Alexander nodded his head.

“My birth is rare, so rare that those on my mother’s side of the family have nearly been decimated. I assume this is because Hel does not share power well? That means that it must take something out of them to turn regular humans into a supernatural creature. The problem with that is, Loki somehow made werewolves to increase in power when they are together. That means that it probably takes less out of Loki, so he is fighting for power with a stacked deck, so to speak. One of our balances is that it doesn’t take more than one of us to become powerful, we are each powerful on our own. So there is no reason for Hel or Thor to trust each other, except that I am an extension of both of their power and therefore it is in their best interest to protect me together.”

“Very good, even more detailed than I thought,” Alexander said.

“So if the Alpha pack claimed me, I would serve the leader of the Order of the Dragon as a very powerful tool. Thor and Hel would have to fight against me, against their own power, which Thor is already doing anyway because the leader of the Order of the Dragon has the Staliński Family. I don’t know why Hel would choose to enter this battle other than me, so there must be something else going on there.”

Alexander smiled. 

“This is the problem though, this is what they hadn’t planned on. When Loki decided not to protect the Hale pack in favor of testing me, he didn’t know that the survivor of the massacre would become my Alpha,” Stiles said, declaring his loyalties to Alexander’s falling smile. Stiles did not pause though, despite how serious Alexander’s face had become. “You see, Derek is my Alpha, and my loyalty is to him, not to my family that decided to let me be tortured. You thought that I would hold a grudge against the Alpha pack for their decisions, but see, I don’t work that way. I will protect my pack, and I will follow my Alpha because he has been there for me this past year and a half. A member of his pack, Scott, has been there for me for five years. My father has been there for me. While you were giving me what you thought was a normal childhood, you alienated me from the family. Instead of teaching me while I was growing up, you watched me. You should have realized that I value knowledge above almost everything, and you hid a very important part about me and my mother. This was only one of your mistakes. Your second mistake was to let me become loyal to something else, because despite how I was made, the man I am values loyalty. You can tell Thor and Hel that while I appreciate the fact that I am alive, I will not fight a war for them, especially when they did not protect my Alpha when he had no one else.”

Alexander’s grin was frightening in its intensity. “I am happy to hear that.”

Stiles paused, ignoring the look of shock on Derek’s face, and the various expressions of the other men around him. “What?”

“Stiles, the gods have ignored us for centuries. We don’t want to fight a war any more than you do. We would have fought alongside of you against the leader of the Order, if that is what you chose to do because we are family. We have no desire to trip a god’s power play because they got bored one day. Your Alpha might be Derek, but in this case we will follow you. We obviously made some mistakes, but please believe me when I say that we did not allow you to be tortured because we were not aware that it was happening. We thought you were safe out here, where the Order could not possibly find you. This is why we haven’t left Beacon Hills since we were aware that your mother died.”

Stiles was quiet. He didn’t expect that at all.

“There are still issues. Your potential to develop your power is still largely untouched. The way that you are trained will largely determine how that power is developed. You are still wanted by the Order, and you are still wanted by Loki. You will have to be trained correctly, because if the Order ever gets a hold of you, your potential for destruction is almost limitless. I would appreciate it if you would allow us to train you, here in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles looked to Derek, who was staring at Stiles already. He nodded his head at him, and Stiles still wasn’t sure. “Let me talk to my Alpha,” Stiles said. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“On a different note,” Alexander said, standing up. “You should really talk to the girl you think that you’re in love with. Having perfect control is important, but your love will define you in more ways than that. There is so much strength in love, Stiles, strength that has nothing to do with power or war. It is a weak man that cannot take a chance at love, indeed.”

Stiles felt himself blushing, all the way to the tips of his ears. “Um, okay,” he said, grabbing the drink that his dad put in front of him to play with the straw.

“With that, talk to your Alpha,” Alexander said, smiling at Derek. “You might be new at this, but you have a good foundation. We are interested to see if the sons of Fenrir can become something more than monsters.”

Derek looked surprised at the hand that Alexander held out for him to shake, but he took it anyway. “Thank you for explaining this to us,” he offered in return.

Alexander studied him, looking deep into his eyes, and then he smiled. Stiles watched as he held Derek’s hand a moment longer than strictly necessary and then released it, looking back at him. “Be brave, cousin,” Alexander said, and then he left Stiles with Derek, Peter, Dr. Deaton, and his father.

“Well,” Stiles dad said. 

“How much did you know about that?” Stiles asked.

“Almost nothing,” the sheriff looked at his son. “I knew about Thor and the Berserkers, of course. I thought it was a story.”

Stiles nodded. 

Peter and Dr. Deaton stood up at the same time. “It’s time for us to go home,” Dr. Deaton said. “You have a lot to talk over with Derek.”

Stiles nodded, and watched as Peter and Dr. Deaton left the house. 

“I’m going to bed. I still have a shift tomorrow,” Stiles’s dad excused himself. “I’ll catch up when you have a pack meeting to discuss… whatever it is you’re going to discuss.”

Stiles was left alone in his kitchen with Derek, but he didn’t know where to start. The pack was still upstairs and if Stiles knew any of them the way that he thought he did, it wasn’t likely that they were still asleep and not eavesdropping.

“You want to go for a drive?” Derek asked, almost like he was reading his mind.

“Yeah,” Stiles said gratefully, finishing off the drink in front of him and grabbing two bottles of water out of the fridge. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Good,” Derek said. He found his keys and followed Stiles out to his car, and for the first time in what felt like forever Stiles relaxed, alone with Derek. 

The Camaro moved through Stiles’s neighborhood smoothly, and Stiles rested against the leather seats in Derek’s car. He closed his eyes for a while, deciding to wait until Derek spoke first.

“I have a very important question, first and foremost,” Derek said as they left the town of Beacon Hills to drive around the surrounding country side.

Stiles took a deep breath. He had to be brave, he remembered his cousin’s parting words. Being brave was part of being a man.

“Okay,” Stiles agreed.

“You don’t have to answer if you’re not comfortable,” Derek seemed alarmed at Stiles’s heartrate, which had honestly gotten a lot quicker.

“No, It’s cool. Go ahead and ask me,” Stiles said, sitting up straighter.

“Okay, just… you don’t have to answer,” Derek said, and it looked like he was preparing himself for Stiles to freak out on him or something. “Stiles, what’s your name?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, the job I had got finished at 5 this morning, and apparently when you don't sleep for a few days you sleep extra when it's over. So I woke up for food this afternoon, and then I didn't wake again 'til midnight. I hope this chapter makes sense!

Stiles laughed. He laughed for a time period that was probably inappropriate to the question, but at this point he was tired and emotionally strung out and reeling from the fact that he was some sort of crazy badass that had the attention of gods. 

Derek just smiled that he could get that response out of Stiles, and that made Stiles laugh all the more.

“Really?”

“Well, it wasn’t what I was originally going to ask you, but I think that it’s important for me to know that, considering you just told a couple of gods to fuck off in favor of declaring loyalty to me,” Derek smirked.

Stiles wiped his eyes, the laughter had brought tears, and he chuckled a little longer. “If I told you, you probably wouldn’t be able to say it anyway.”

“Humor me. If you’re going to be part of my pack, I should at least know your name.”

“Przemysław,” Stiles said. “My name is Przemysław.”

Derek stared at him. “How do you spell that?”

Stiles spelled it for him, and then he had to pronounce it slowly for Derek to finally get the hang of it. He made him say ‘pshemyslaf,’ with the accent on the last syllable about ten times before Derek felt a little more comfortable in saying it. 

“Can Scott say it?” Derek asked.

“No, Scott can’t say it at all. He’s tried, but he gives up or gets distracted. He hasn’t tried at all to say it in years.”

At that point, Derek had pulled up in front of his house. Stiles followed Derek into the living room, and they were quiet as they settled on the couch. 

“So, fighting against gods? Don’t you think it’s a little soon for that, what with being so close to getting our collective asses almost kicked by a simple kamina?” Derek asked him.

Stiles felt bad. He shouldn’t have done that to his pack. “Do you think I should go back and tell them that I’ll join them?”

“No,” Derek said. “We’ll fight to keep you, make no mistake on that. It helps that your… cousin has declared loyalty to you, too. I would hate to have to fight Valkyrie on top of gods and the Order.”

Stiles nodded, settling back into Derek’s sofa. “Is this a new sofa?” he asked, his fingers testing the contrasts in the fabric. It was a camel colored corduroy, not what Stiles would have thought would have been Derek’s first choice for a sofa.

“Ten bucks at the Salvation Army. Got tired of the sofa in here smelling like ash,” Derek shrugged.

Stiles nodded. “You decided to assert your masculinity by acting like you don’t care about what it looks like?”

Derek snorted, but Stiles kind of thought that was what was happening. “I’ll replace it, but if it rains too heavily it’s going to smell like mildew. I’m probably just going to throw it away, anyway.”

Stiles nodded his head again. “It’s soft.”

Derek stared at him for a while. “How’s your face?”

“It’s face-like,” Stiles answered, not wanting to complain too much. He might be the token human of the group, well, not exactly a human anymore, but he hated it when a bunch of werewolves thought he might be weak or something.

“Your chest, it’s okay, too?” Derek asked.

“Derek,” Stiles said in a voice that let Derek know he was getting tired of being asked if he was all right. “It’s going to hurt. I didn’t get all whiny over you when you had a wolfsbane bullet in your arm, did I?”

Derek blinked. “Well, we kind of hated each other then.”

“So we don’t hate each other anymore?” Stiles asked.

“Only sometimes,” Derek said, and the smile on his face was so tempting to kiss off right there that Stiles had to look away from him or do something that would probably embarrass him for life.

“I think that we’ll need the Valkyrie Derek,” Stiles said. “I think we’ll need them for a while, until we can figure out how to train me without them.”

“You don’t think that you’ll become attached and want to keep them?” Derek asked, and Stiles could still hear the smile on his face.

“That’s a possibility,” Stiles said, “I do tend to get attached.”

“Even when you don’t like people,” Derek observed.

“It seems to happen especially then,” Stiles agreed.

“So, you think that Scott sees us as one pack?” Derek asked casually, but if he knew the stab of jealousy Stiles felt at bringing Scott into this conversation, Stiles hoped that Derek wouldn’t have been so casual about it.

“He already does,” Stiles answered him carefully. “You have your second, I suppose,” he continued, hoping that werewolves couldn’t smell jealousy. 

“Good, I would hate to think that he was alone, now that you’ve declared loyalty,” Derek said.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. He was kind of lost for what to say next. “I guess we’ve discussed everything?”

Derek frowned, although Stiles couldn’t figure out why. “We still need to go over why you think that Thor and Hel have a case for Loki, and what the Order has to do with everything.”

“I’m not sure what the Order has to do with anything, to be honest. I know that they want dad back, and if that’s just so they can claim ownership over everyone in that family I have the feeling that’s what they’ll do. They seem power hungry to me. I think that Thor wants his berserkers back, but they’re human and therefore flawed in the fact that they can declare loyalty to whomever they see fit. Dad might be dissatisfied working for the Order, but that doesn’t mean that all of the Berserkers who work for them are upset about it. I have no idea what Hel’s intentions are, although if her Valkyrie went from a hundred to six, I imagine that she’s not happy with it since they are made from her power.”

“How can you figure all of this out?” Derek asked, “I mean, no one has told you a whole lot, I was there when you were given the information, how can you figure out what all of these people’s intentions are without being given more information?”

“I have ADHD,” Stiles shrugged. “Everyone who has it often makes the same types of leap of logic. It’s part of the way their brain works.”

Derek was quiet for a while. “Well, what it seems that we need to work on first is getting whoever you like to like you back. If it gives you better control, we need to pursue it. I have my anchor to keep me from wolfing out, and now we need to find yours. So, tell me who she is and I’ll tell you how to get her.”

“You’re going to be my relationship guru?” Stiles asked, looking over at Derek again.

Derek looked determined, “Yes,” he said. “Is it Lydia still? It’ll be hard to get her away from Jackson, but we can do it…”

“It’s not Lydia,” Stiles said. “This is kind of something that I’d prefer to ignore until it went away. This is never going to happen.”

“Erica then? I know you two have that Batman/Catwoman thing you keep bringing up…”

“What?” Stiles asked, “No, it’s never been Erica…”

Derek looked relieved for some reason. “So it’s someone at school. We can…”

“Derek,” Stiles said, “I really don’t want your help on this.”

“Stiles, if it’s your anchor, we have to do this,” Derek stared at him in the eyes, and Stiles didn’t feel intimidated at all for the very first time.

“Derek, you’re not going to be able to help out,” Stiles explained. “This person would never like me…”

“Why wouldn’t she like you?” Derek asked. “You just have to be nice to her for a while then pretend that she doesn’t exist, that’s how all girls work.”

Stiles dropped his head in his hands. “Seriously? No wonder you’re still single.”

“I’ve had plenty of girlfriends,” Derek said, sounding slightly hurt.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Stiles shrugged. “Look, the person that I like…”

Derek waited for a moment. “Why do you keep saying ‘the person?’”

“What?” Stiles asked.

“You’re talking without pronouns,” Derek said. “Do you like a boy?”

“Well…”

“You’re bi?” Derek asked, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. 

“So you want to get this boy to like you?” Derek asked him.

“Derek…”

“I’ve never seduced a boy before,” Derek said, running his hand through his hair. “That may be harder. Is he gay?”

“No,” Stiles said, “I don’t think that he is.”

“So that means it’s not Danny,” Derek nodded. “Wait, it’s not Jackson, is it?”

“Ugh!” Stiles said, flumping back on the couch. “Stop it, I don’t want to tell you who it is.”

“Okay, so, the first thing you have to do is to get him drunk. Everyone’s straight until they’re drunk,” Derek said.

“You speaking from experience?” Stiles asked him, suddenly curious.

“We’re not talking about me,” Derek said, glaring at Stiles.

“Why not? If I have to tell you who my embarrassing crush is, I think that you can share this,” Stiles smiled at Derek. “C’mon sourwolf, you know you want to tell me.”

“Stop calling me that,” Derek growled.

“Derek, have you kissed a boy before?” Stiles asked.

“Stiles, we’re talking about you.”

“I think you have,” Stiles grinned, leaning over to Derek to give him shit about it. It was only fair.

“Stiles,” Derek said.

“What was it like?” Stiles wanted to know, suddenly curious.

Derek narrowed his eyes at him, “It’s kind of like kissing a girl, only with stubble and less lipstick.”

Stiles nodded his head. “C’mon, more details, I haven’t even kissed a girl so I don’t know what that’s like.”

Derek stilled. “You’ve never been kissed?”

“Derek, seriously, I’m Stiles Stilinski. Have we met? I’m practically a social pariah.”

Derek was quiet.

“C’mon, it’s not like I just admitted to having some life threatening disease or something, you don’t have to act like it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’ll happen one day, as soon as I stop liking unobtainable people. I just have to find someone who’s more on my level,” Stiles said.

“Why is he unobtainable?” Derek wanted to know.

Stiles glared at Derek, “I know that it might be hard to believe, looking like you do, but not everyone is going to simply fall for me because I want them to. I mean, look at me! I’m not as blatantly gorgeous as you are.”

“You’re gorgeous,” Derek said, startled by the thought that Stiles wouldn’t think so.

“Thanks, I’m sure,” Stiles said. “Lying to me isn’t going to help.”

“No, you are,” Derek pushed. “You just… you really are.”

“That was convincing,” Stiles said dryly. “Also, uncomfortable. It was like you were almost trying.”

Derek grabbed the front of Stiles’s shirt and pulled him in close. “You’re gorgeous,” he growled. “Any guy in his right mind would think so.”

Stiles’s brain wasn’t going to let himself go there, where Derek was staring at him in the eye and really close to him and if Stiles moved just a little, he could find out what it was to kiss someone. “You mean fifteen percent of the population?”

“What?”

“The only people in their right mind are left handed people, who constitute fifteen percent of the population. On the planet.”

Derek looked confused, and he dropped Stiles. “You are infuriating.”

“I’ve heard that from a couple people before,” Stiles agreed.

Derek was quiet for a moment. “Stiles, you can tell me who you like or I can ask Scott…”

“Scott doesn’t even know,” Stiles said, laughing a little. Like he was going to tell Scott that he liked Derek.

“You told everyone you liked Lydia, why is this such a secret?”

“This one matters,” Stiles said. He stared at the floor of Derek’s living room.

“Oh,” Derek said, and he sounded a little sad. 

Stiles decided to pursue it. “Why do you sound sad about that?” he asked, looking over at Derek.

“What? I don’t,” Derek protested.

Stiles sighed. This was getting a whole lot of nowhere, and he was getting frustrated. “I want to go home,” Stiles announced. “We’re not getting a whole lot accomplished here, other than recapping and making fun of Stiles for not announcing to the world who his newest crush is…”

“I’m not making fun of you,” Derek said. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Really? So why don’t you tell me who you like?” Stiles asked. “If it’s so easy, who’s your main person of interest right now?”

“It’d probably scare you,” Derek said, smiling a little bit at him. 

“I’m not scared easy,” Stiles replied.

“Okay, but you understand that just because I like someone they aren’t obligated to like me back and it won’t change things?” Derek asked.

“Why would…” Stiles started to ask, but he was shocked that Derek was leaning back on the couch away from him. “Wait…”

Derek grinned, a little self-deprecating. “Seriously, it doesn’t have to change anything…”

“You mean, you like me?” Stiles asked.

“I don’t want you to feel weirded out or anything by it,” Derek explained. “I’m still going to help you get the guy that you like…”

“Why would you do that?” Stiles asked. “I mean, if you liked me, why would you want me to be with someone else?”

“I don’t,” Derek said, “I want you to be with me, but I want you to be happy, and I want you to have your anchor. That’s more important…”

“You’re an idiot,” Stiles said. “I understand now, Isaac was right…”

“What?” Derek asked, “It’s Isaac?”

“No, seriously, you’re an idiot,” Stiles said, “I’ve liked you for what seems like forever, although I just figured it out recently, but you couldn’t tell? What about all your werewolfy superpowers? Why aren’t those working there, cool guy? I didn’t think that I was capable of hiding my emotions at all, so I ignored them for as long as possible, but how could you not…”

Stiles was interrupted by Derek’s mouth, but he honestly wasn’t complaining. He reached his hand up to touch Derek’s face, opening his mouth against Derek’s when Derek pushed on his jaw a little. He felt Derek’s tongue against his own, and he gasped a little bit with how good that felt. It was a perfect kiss, and it became his world, there was nothing outside of the feeling of Derek’s lips on his own and Derek’s tongue slipping inside of his mouth and the scent of Derek in his nose. 

Nothing except the beating of his heart, which kind of felt like it was going to explode. That was okay though, Stiles decided. He would die happy.

Derek pulled away from him, kissing his lips a few more times. “We should get you home,” he said thickly.

“Home, yeah,” Stiles agreed. His brain wasn’t functioning too terribly much. He was okay with that, too.

“Home,” Derek agreed. He stood up and patted his pockets a few times, then picked up the keys to his Camaro that had been resting on the floor next to the couch. Stiles stared at his ass when he was bending over because Stiles was seventeen, but he was now allowed to perv like that whenever he felt like it. He watched as Derek patted his back pocket to make sure that his wallet was there, and he smiled at the sight. “Quit being a perv and let’s get you home.”

“Sorry, you should probably know, I’m a perv.”

“I already know,” Derek said, rolling his eyes. “Get in the car.”

“You’re making me go home now?” Stiles asked. “Seriously, a kiss is all I get?”

Derek stared at Stiles, “Yes, that’s all you’re getting. We haven’t even gone on a date yet. I’m not that easy.”

Stiles snorted. He got off the couch and started walking towards the door, but he jumped when Derek swatted at his ass. “Hey…”

“I might be a perv, too,” Derek grinned at him.

Stiles pulled him in for another kiss, and that seemed to be okay with Derek. He did push Stiles away when his hand wandered down a little further though. 

“You have to buy me dinner, first,” Derek growled at him.

Stiles laughed, kissing Derek’s cheek, and then he went outside to get in the car.

Derek followed him, and Stiles watched him getting into the car with a stupid grin on his face.

It was gloriously awkward, and Stiles reveled in the feeling. He could tell Derek felt like as big of a dork as he did, but that was just as much fun to him as the kissing, surprisingly. He was trying really hard not to make googly eyes over at the werewolf next to him, but he thought that it was pretty much a lost cause. 

They sat in Stiles’s driveway for a few more minutes, just making out. It was the best time that Stiles had experienced in the past couple of months, and he could tell that Derek was giving him this normal teenage moment because he wanted Stiles to have it. 

If Stiles hadn’t been told by everyone else that he was in love with Derek, that is when he would have realized it. Derek very obviously cared about him, and even more so with what Stiles needed than with what he wanted. Because Stiles wanted so much more right then, but he wasn’t ready to talk about it, much less act on it. It was his first kiss, and he was grateful that he wouldn’t have to experience everything all at once because Derek was going to let him go slow. 

Stiles smiled at him one more time. “I should probably go back in.”

Derek nodded, touching the side of Stiles’s face where the gold was slowly flaking off and leaving behind pale white skin. “All right,” Derek said. “You want me to walk you to your door?”

Stiles wanted to laugh. “Yeah, I’m a little paranoid about walking anywhere by myself right now.”

Derek grinned at him. “Good answer,” he got out of his car and opened Stiles’s door.

“You’re such a dork,” Stiles told him.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Derek said.

It was a good thing that Stiles made him walk to his door with him, because there was a man standing on his porch with Steve right behind him, and that man didn’t look entirely happy at all.


	13. Chapter 13

On closer inspection, the man on Stiles’s porch wasn’t really a man. He was a poor facsimilie, although Stiles really had to look at him to make sure. His expressions were just a second too late, too practiced, and watching him was like watching an old black and white movie that didn’t have enough frames per second to record all of the creature’s movements. He gave Stiles the creeps, and not in the familiar way that Creepy Steve was used to doing.

“Stiles Stilinski,” the creature greeted him, and even in the moonlight Stiles could see how black his hair was, how dark blue his eyes were. He would have been a beautiful man, if it weren’t for the fact that he just majorly gave off that uber creep vibe. 

“Hello,” Stiles said, trying to mind his manners. He didn’t know why, but this creature seemed to appreciate manners.

“I have come here because Stephanus seems to have misrepresented our Order. Stephanus, apologize to Stiles,” the creature said, in an off-hand flippant manner.

“I’m sorry, Stiles,” Steve said, and if he had a tail it would have been tucked between his legs. He bowed, but with that he must have smelled Derek on Stiles. “He’s been marked! No, he’s mine!” he lunged towards Stiles, but the creature hissed at him, revealing long, thin, cat-like incisors. Steve settled back behind him again, but he was glaring at Derek.

Stiles and Derek both stepped back. “Vampire,” Stiles named him.

The creature paused. “I have been called worse, many times,” the vampire said. “I will accept that classification, although it is not entirely true. One makes sacrifices when they choose to protect their people at all costs.”

“Um, okay. So… what are you doing here?” Stiles asked.

“I’m afraid that Stephanus might have misrepresented our mission, and I have come to clarify the situation. I know that you have been raised American,” the creature said with a sneer, like this was a bad thing, “And are therefore more… anarchist than we like in the older countries, but you should consider what we do before you turn our offer down.”

“Okay, but let’s get first thing’s first,” Stiles said. “Who are you?”

“Forgive me, it has been many centuries since I have been in a situation where introductions were necessitated,” the creature said. “I am Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad Tepes.”

“You’re Dracula?” Stiles asked.

Vlad made a face at that title. “Yes, I have been called that, too.”

“Dracula is here to seduce me to the Dark Side?” Stiles asked.

Vlad sighed. It seemed like he was losing what very little patience that he had. “The Dark Side? Really? A Jedi reference?”

Derek laughed a little behind Stiles, but he choked it down the best he could.

Vlad looked behind Stiles to see Derek. “I see you already have a Pack. Is he your mate?”

“Um…” Stiles said.

“Yes,” Derek said.

“And an Alpha, at that. A young one who is already battle tested, and victorious. You are indeed, a very special warrior. If you choose, you may take your pack with you when you come to me,” Dracula said. “I would provide for them, if you would fight for me.”

“Look, I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but it is highly unlikely that I will be going with you. I have to protect this, my home, from intruders, just as you protect your home.”

Vlad’s eyes seemed to look a little more compassionate. Not much, not like he was giving up, but a little more.

Of course, Stiles’s dad chose that moment to pull up in the driveway.

Vlad waited patiently while the sheriff walked towards him. “I look forward to seeing you back in service in a year,” Vlad said. “Your family has always served us well.”

The sheriff nodded. “I will be there, but my son will not. He will stay here.”

“It is his decision, isn’t it?” Vlad asked Stiles’s dad, and Stiles was kind of happy that Vlad had to look up to make eye contact with him. Petty, sure, but whatever.

“Yes, and he won’t choose you. He has ties here.”

“And his only family is going to return to my service. I wonder how well he will deal with the fact that his father is alone, with me, in a country that he has never seen before.”

“As far as I understand it, the treaty with Russia still stands. I don’t suppose that you are going to break it just for me.”

“Just for you? Oh no,” Vlad sneered. “For a gift like your son? I won’t need the treaty with Russia anymore.”

Steve grinned in the background, like he had just scented victory.

“You think Romania is prepared for the nuclear arsenal that Russia loves to have excuses to throw around?” The sheriff looked hard at Vlad. “Because I don’t care how many supernatural creatures you have at your command, they won’t survive a nuclear blast. And that was one of the points of your agreement with Russia, wasn’t it? They get us for the next three hundred years, don’t they? And by the time that is over, I’ll be dead and you’ll have lost all of your leverage with my son.”

“You’ve read the agreement,” Vlad said, not realizing that the sheriff would have done something like that.

“Oh yes, I read the agreement,” he answered. “I’m half tempted to post the agreement on the Internet, so that you can’t pull it off as an unlicensed attack by Russia on Romania, and therefore the other countries in the UN won’t come to your side.”

Vlad glared at the sheriff. “Don’t think that this is the only means of persuasion that I have.”

“No, but it’s one that you can’t use again,” the sheriff looked tired. “And we’re not inviting you in the house, so feel free to leave.”

The sheriff ushered Stiles and Derek into the house, leaving one last glare for Vlad and Steve. 

Derek and Stiles sat down at the kitchen table as the sheriff started pulling things out of the fridge. 

“Dad, maybe I should cook,” Stiles offered.

After the sheriff glanced at the food he had pulled out, he nodded. Stiles got up and put some of it away and pulled other things out, and his dad rested his head in his hands. “Stiles, you cannot go work for him.”

“I won’t dad,” Stiles promised.

“If you thought that Gerard was corrupt, you have no idea what that man gets up to. He claims that he is protecting Romania, but the decisions that he makes are not always… they aren’t always right. And he punishes disobedience.”

“Dad, I’m not interested in working for any government organization,” Stiles told him.

“He won’t be the only one,” his dad said. “Once you come of age, there are going to be so many governments after you. Even the United States is going to be after you, like they were with your mother. It’s almost impossible to get away from it. You don’t want to work for a government, Stiles, they’re too corrupt, too power hungry to use you wisely.”

“Dad,” Stiles said gently, “I’m not going to work for any government.”

“Not even contractual, do you understand?” the sheriff looked at Stiles like he was angry. “Don’t even let them offer you a case by case basis. You don’t know what they’re really doing, you don’t know why they want this group taken out or why you have to kill this child or let that one live. You cannot let them get anything on you.”

“Dad,” Stiles said, putting a pot of water on the stove, “I’m not going to, okay? We’ve had these conversations before.”

“Better you work in a gas station for the rest of your life,” the sheriff said.

“I’m not going to work in a gas station, dad,” Stiles said.

“It’s better,” his dad said. “It’s better than living with yourself after…”

“Dad,” Stiles said, turning the heat down on the stove before walking over to his dad, “don’t worry. I know the consequences, remember? I know I can’t handle them. You don’t have to tell me, I know. We’ve talked about this before in one form or another.”

Derek kind of sat at the table, a little uncomfortable with what was going on. He didn’t say anything though, because he knew that Stiles and his dad weren’t going to have much more time together, and there were things that parents just wanted to make sure their kids understood before they left. “I’m sure that Stiles will call you before he makes any major decisions,” Derek said.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, “Derek’s right. It’s not like I won’t be able to ever see you again, and it’s not like we won’t be able to call each other.”

The sheriff looked at his son like he was sadly mistaken, but since Stiles was going to simply ignore that he turned back to the stove and finished making dinner. They ate in silence for most of the meal, and then his dad shoved his half-eaten plate away from him. “Are you staying the night, Derek?” 

“What?” Derek yelped.

“I’ll just rest easier, knowing you’re here, what with Dracula being in town and all,” the sheriff said.

“Yeah, yeah, I can… stay on the couch?” Derek looked at Stiles.

Stiles nodded. Even if he didn’t, he wasn’t ready to share that with his dad yet.

“Fine, don’t stay up too late. Stiles, you have school in the morning,” and with that his dad went to bed.

Stiles stared at his food, blushing.

“Look, if you don’t want me to stay, I can send Isaac or Scott over…”

“No, it’s fine,” Stiles said, “I think my dad feels more comfortable with you, and Scott’s probably with Allison anyway.”

Derek nodded, and he helped Stiles tidy up the kitchen. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Yeah, weren’t we talking about libraries before?” Stiles asked.

“Maybe,” Derek said. “At least I have a card now, don’t I?”

Stiles snorted at Derek’s lame joke, and Derek smiled back at him. “Hey, c’mere,” he said. Stiles willing walked into Derek’s arms, and Derek smudged some of the bubbles from the dish soap on the tip of his nose. “Your turn for the washing, I’ll dry and put them up.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, but he moved and took over for Derek. 

The kitchen was cleaned, and Stiles and Derek moved to the living room where they plopped on the couch and pulled up a movie on Netflix. It didn’t matter what they were watching because they weren’t really paying attention to the screen, being more interested in the warm heat of the other’s mouth and the ways that it could fit around the texture of each other’s’ skin. Their hands stayed within PG territory, but Derek finally shoved Stiles away and told him to go to bed. 

Stiles didn’t really want to, but he knew that didn’t mean this was over so he crawled between his sheets and passed out.

Alexander was there first thing in the morning, and Derek offered his house so that they could train in private. Stiles was nervous, but Alexander promised him an easy first morning.

It didn’t help that Derek had told the pack that Stiles was training, so they all came out to watch.

“The first thing you have to learn about,” Alexander said when they were in the middle of Derek’s backyard, “Is how to run away.”

“What?” Stiles asked, wrinkling his nose. He wasn’t a run-away type of guy.

“You notice that we can seemingly disappear or appear whenever we want?” Alexander asked him.

“Yeah, it’s kind of freaky.”

“It’s just because we can fly really fast.”

“I can fly?” Stiles asked him.

“Yeah,” Alexander said. “The first few hundred years we weren’t really good at it, so people realized that we have wings. No one hardly ever sees our wings anymore because we go so quickly, so it’s easier to hide what we are. Don’t worry though, it’s going to take a while for you to hide them. Like I said it took us a few hundred years…”

“Let’s get back to this ‘I can fly,’ part,” Stiles urged him, and he tried to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Okay, watch me,” Alexander instructed. 

Stiles understood why they all wore tailored suits, because when Alexander’s great big grey wings came out the fabric settled nicely over his shoulder blades and the base of his wings.

“I need a suit,” Stiles grouched.

“We’ll make you one,” Alexander grinned at him. “For now, just take your shirt off or it’s going to hurt when your wings come out.”

Stiles nodded, and Lydia and Allison and Danny all whistled at him as he stripped his shirt off. He flipped them off and then turned back to Alexander. 

“Okay, now we have to get your wings out. I just think about them, and they come out. You try.”

Stiles tried. Nothing happened.

“Maybe if you get really angry,” Alexander thought out loud.

“My best friend is Scott. If I was going to get angry, then I think I would have done so by now,” Stiles said dryly.

“Right. What’s another strong emotion… how about if I threaten your life?” Alexander asked. He picked Stiles up and before Stiles knew it, they were soaring in the clouds.

“Oh man, this is awesome,” Stiles smiled at Alexander. 

Alexander dropped him.

Stiles felt himself falling to the earth, and he was so fascinated by the feeling of being absolutely free that he forgot to concentrate on pulling his wings out before Alexander caught him right before he touched the ground. “Do it again!” Stiles insisted.

Alexander looked a little frustrated. “That didn’t work.”

Derek laughed. “Stiles doesn’t react like a normal person when you’re threatening his life.”

“You should know,” Stiles said under his breath. 

Alexander studied Derek for a minute, and then he looked back at Stiles. He disappeared in front of Stiles and reappeared in front of Derek, closing his wings around Derek’s body and pulling the Alpha in closer to him. Alexander’s hand reached out and caressed Derek’s cheek, lingered over his jaw, and then Alexander’s lips were lowering closer to Derek’s. 

Stiles wings unfolded in pure jealousy, because Derek was his and Alexander had no right to touch him. Stiles hadn’t even realized it was happening before he marched over to Alexander and Derek and ripped Derek out of Alexander’s wings and enfolded him in his own. “No,” Stiles glared at Alexander.

Alexander grinned. “Well, we at least got the first part of your training covered,” he said, smiling with pride at Stiles’s jet black wings covering Derek protectively.

Stiles realized what he was doing, and he could feel himself blushing even as he stepped back slowly from Derek. His wings drooped in embarrassment, and he really wanted to hide his face as his so-called friends laughed and giggled at him.

“You have beautiful wings, Stiles,” Lydia called out.

Stiles paused to look at the huge appendages hanging from his back. Those fuckers were really heavy, too, and they pulled at his back where they seemed to grow out of his shoulder blades. They were covered in thick, black feathers that reflected the sunlight with a broken purple-blue shine, and they were taller than he was even though the ends dragged the ground a little.

“How do I put them back?” Stiles wanted to know.

Derek smiled at that, and he pulled Stiles into a kiss that had the rest of the pack gaping at them. It was warm and wet and perfect and Stiles felt his wings receding back into his shoulder blades, where they now kind of itched to be let out again.

Stiles kissed Derek back a little longer than necessary, but hey, kissing Derek. It wasn’t like it was something he ever wanted to stop doing on a good day.

Alexander cleared his throat a little, so Stiles and Derek pushed each other away so that they could concentrate on the reason that they were there in the first place.

“Let’s pull your wings out again,” Alexander instructed.

“Don’t touch my boyfriend again,” Stiles insisted.

“I won’t have to, if you just remember the emotion that pulled them out,” Alexander said.

Stiles made himself remember what it felt like to watch Derek in Alexander’s arms, and his wings came out again. Derek looked pleased and proud all at the same time, and Stiles tried not to preen at his reaction.

“Good,” Alexander said, approvingly and kind of impressed. “Now, I need you to flap them back and forth, like this,” Alexander demonstrated with his own frosty gray wings, slow movements that stirred the air around them and blew cool breezes against his already kind of cold friends.

Stiles tried to match the rhythm that Alexander was setting, but it was hard because his own wings were bigger than Alexander’s and he had much less control over them. He flapped around a little bit, and everyone complained about the cold air that he was stirring up, but they weren’t upset enough to go away and stop watching Stiles make a fool out of himself. 

Derek didn’t even look cold. It might have been the werewolf blood, or it might have had something to do with the way that Derek was looking at him. Stiles kind of had to blush with the way that Derek was looking at him, but he was trying really hard to concentrate on moving his wings with Alexander’s.

“Okay, you ready?” Alexander asked him.

“Ready for what?” Stiles asked.

“Are you ready to fly now?”

“Already?” Stiles squeaked.

Alexander just picked him up again, and this time when they hit the clouds, Stiles was ready.

He still fell, the first couple hundred feet, but he flapped his wings, first the left one and then the right, and it jerked his momentum but didn’t really stop it, and then he moved his wings in the rhythm that Alexander taught him and he kind of hitched his way slowly downward with each jerk of his shoulder blades. He tried moving them in double beats then, and his jerking descent was smoothed out a little more. Then he realized if he just flattened his wings a little more, they would hit currents that were already in the air, and he would glide a little before he had to move his wings again.

By the time he made it to the ground he was already gliding circles around the back yard of the Hale House, and he had figured out how to dodge trees and move where he wanted to go. He felt graceful in the air, like he was meant to be there, like everything worked perfectly when he had his wings out. 

Of course, when he landed, he fell on his face. But that was to be expected from Stiles Stilinski.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long to update. You would not believe all the crap that happened this week. 
> 
> Anyway, because of said crap, I decided that I needed fluff. I'm not entirely sure that the story needed fluff, but it's getting it because I said so. There's not a whole lot of plot points here, but there is indeed A LOT of fluff. So, prepare your toothbrushes so that you don't get cavities or whatever, and try not to throw up too much from the sugar OD's y'all are about to go through.

One of the single greatest things that had ever happened to Stiles was finding a teacher in Alexander. He had an answer for every single question that Stiles could think of, and he didn’t get bored with the training even though everyone else periodically took breaks in watching. Alexander didn’t think that Stiles’s hyper-concentration was annoying, or that there was a specific time which Stiles had been allotted to said training. He didn’t mind going over things repeatedly until Stiles got it, he didn’t mind spending twenty minutes talking about one aspect of their training, he didn’t mind the four hours that they spent letting Stiles go over and over moves until he perfected them and they became second nature. 

The only thing that made them stop was the fact that the sun had gone down and Stiles’s dad had come to feed the pack and made sure that Stiles took a break.

“I understand why you’re so good at research now,” Derek said.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“I mean, I got bored with the two hour training sessions my family put me through. You’ve been going for almost ten hours straight, and there’s no way I could have thought of all the questions you were asking. My parents even told me that I was good for going two hours, because Laura never even lasted forty-five minutes. My betas get bored and tired after thirty, sometimes.”

Stiles smiled, because he was pretty sure that Derek was complimenting him. He liked that.

The food was good, and there was a lot of it. Everyone ate and packed up to go home. Derek surprised Stiles by snuggling on him a little before he had to go, but Stiles wasn’t complaining. He liked Derek snuggles. They were almost as good as Derek kisses. It was that thought that had Stiles pleased that he was so tired he was running on internal monologue at that point, because it kind of sounded like Derek was making his brain melt out his left ear. It was entirely possible, though, because Derek snuggles were just that good.

Stiles woke up on time to go to school the next day, and the entire day had a surreal quality to it. Nothing seemed as real as it had yesterday, what with the flying and the lessons and the snuggles at the end. That, and there was a new Honors Spanish teacher.

Everyone knew that the other Spanish teacher was pregnant with twins. They all figured that they had a few more weeks with her though, but since twins were twice the trouble, as everyone said that they were, she had taken off a few weeks early because of some sort of contractions problem. Stiles wasn’t really paying attention to the reason, because he was studying the new Spanish teacher.

Honestly, he wasn’t doing a really good job of hiding who he was.

It wasn’t the long golden blonde pony-tail that gave him away, or the fact that he came to class dressed like a beach bum, or even the mischievous twinkle in his startlingly blue eyes. No, it was the face that during roll call, the man pronounced Stiles’s first name correctly. Not his nickname, as was written with a little bit of relief next to the role by whatever teacher was getting advice from his previous teachers, no, this man just called out, “Przemysław Staliński,” like that was a name that people just called their kids in America every single day. 

It did take Lydia about two seconds to notice that this was weird, too, and after that Jackson and Danny perked up and started studying the man, even if they hadn’t noticed why.

“All right, dudes,” the teacher said, and he sounded like he had just walked off the beach, “Today we’re going to talk about something your regular teacher left behind. Whoa, I don’t even know what this is, past imperfect Spanish? Lucky me, she left the answers behind,” the new teacher chuckled.

“Um, Mr….” Lydia called out.

“Yes, Miss Martin?” the teacher asked.

“What are we supposed to call you?”

“The Principal said that you have to call me by my last name, ‘cause if you call me by my first name I’ll never get your respect,” the teacher said with a smile.

“What’s your last name?” Lydia asked very, very patiently.

“Odinsson,” the teacher said. “You can call me Mr. Odinsson.” Of course it was Thor, although why an ancient Viking god thought it would be fun to act and dress and walk and talk like a California beach bum and teach high school Spanish was beyond Stiles’s comprehension.

“Yeah, that’s who I thought you were,” Lydia said with some confusion in her voice.

“Dude, you know me?” the teacher asked. Stiles was starting to wonder if his way of talking indicated that Thor spent most of his time high, or sniffing paint. He was a god, so it could always be possible that he was doing both.

“I’ve heard stories,” Lydia said dryly.

“So many stories, you know they can’t all be true,” Thor shook his head sadly, like it was unfortunate that he just hadn’t had enough time to make them all true yet. 

Stiles, Lydia, Jackson, and Danny kept looking at each other like they weren’t quite sure what was going on. Stiles looked around the room a little bit for a camera; he thought that someone could have thought this was a very funny practical joke. Besides the old one that Principal Argent had strung up, which was mysteriously missing some necessary wires like a few other cameras in the school, there didn’t seem to be one in sight. Obviously, this was not a prank.

“So, little dudes,” Thor said, “Shall we get back to the most awesome study of… wait, what kind of Spanish was this again?”

“Is he for real?” Jackson hissed at Stiles.

“Dude,” Stiles simply said. He realized that might not be the appropriate response in this situation.

Danny started snickering, and Mr. Odinsson was nice enough to excuse him to go to the bathroom so that he could take care of the tickle in his throat.

It turned out to be… well, not quite like any other class Stiles had ever taken before. Thor gave up on trying to teach them what they were supposed to be learning and instead just gave them all the answers, and then he told them that they could talk to each other in Spanish and not English. He seemed quite fluent in the language, despite not knowing the grammar involved in knowing a language, and Stiles thought that was possible. He knew lots of people who completely flunked English grammer yet had no problems communicating in the language. 

They left the class, and Thor hadn’t threatened them or acted at all like he was plotting against them or had blackmailed them into joining his side in the epic god-battle that the Order and the Valkyries and whoever else was hinting at fighting.

“After school,” Stiles said to the three who had been in his class.

It was apparent that massive texts had been sent out, because Stiles didn’t find himself alone for the rest of the day. Someone was always at his side, for one reason or another, and Derek and Alexander both met him in the parking lot at the end of the school day. 

It was kind of awesome, being picked up from school by a much older, hot boyfriend. Stiles tried not to be too pleased by the fact that most of the girls and even some of the guys were giving Derek and his car significant looks, but he was a teenager and this was kind of a fantasy of his. So sue him for being shallow or whatever, but it felt good.

“Why is Thor at your school?” Alexander asked him.

Stiles gave him a blank look. There was really no right answer to that question.

“Did he threaten you at all? Lydia told me that he was weird, but he didn’t single you out or anything…” Derek said.

“Yeah, he’s weird,” Stiles agreed. “He knows who I am, I think, but he might just know Polish… although I thought he was like, Norwegian or Swedish or something…”

“The Vikings went everywhere, you know,” Alexander shrugged, “they liked a’viking.”

“Um…” Stiles said.

“Yeah, it’s a really long story,” Alexander said. “I’ll tell it to you later.”

Stiles nodded. “So you’re saying it’s not that important?”

“Not really, unless you like hearing how the gods got it on with humans and little baby demigods went around and conquered other humans and took their religions with them when they went from various places…”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I think I heard that story in history class, thanks,” he said.

Alexander nodded. “So, Thor’s teaching Spanish?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “It’s really freakin’ weird. He’s horrible at it, too.”

“Thor’s not really… like the other gods,” Alexander tried explaining.

“He smokes a lot of pot, doesn’t he?” Stiles asked him.

“We tend to think yes,” Alexander nodded his head.

Derek looked surprised at this. “Seriously, Thor’s your stoned Spanish teacher?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, scratching the back of his neck. He looked around at the almost empty parking lot, quickly filling with band students who were about to start practicing marching formations for some upcoming competition.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alexander said. “Meet you over at the house?” he gestured for Stiles to hand over the keys to his Jeep.

“Stiles and I have something to do first,” Derek said. “We’ll meet you there tonight.”

Stiles nodded, having no idea what Derek was talking about but game for anything that included hanging out with him. He handed the keys over and then crawled into Derek’s car. 

Derek got in and leaned over to kiss Stiles, which took a good amount of time. Stiles knew he was worried about him all day when he was at school without Derek’s protection, but any excuse for this man’s lips and tongue on his own was really okay with Stiles. 

Derek finally pulled away with a few chaste pecks on Stiles’s lips, and then he started his car.

“Where are we going?” Stiles asked him.

“Oh, um…” Derek said, turning bright red, “Well…”

Stiles laughed. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. This is me. There is nothing you can say that can possibly be embarrassing to me.”

Derek smirked a little. “Well, see, it’s December, and…”

Stiles waited for a moment. It was a long moment.

“I don’t know what to get the pack for Christmas.” Derek said this very quickly like he was scared Stiles was going to laugh at him or something.

“We’re going Christmas shopping? Now?” Stiles tried not to laugh. Really. There was honestly an attempt in there, somewhere. 

Derek flushed again, which made Stiles laugh all the harder. “Shut up, Stiles.”

“No, I mean, it’s just…” Stiles wheezed a little bit. “It’s… normal. We’re doing something normal.”

Derek glanced over at Stiles, confused.

“We never get to do anything normal. We’re always trying to not die or figure something out or planning. We never just get to… be normal.”

Derek scowled. “I’d rather fight Alphas and gods.”

Stiles laughed again, but he reached over to take Derek’s hand in his own momentarily. “Thank you.”

Derek looked startled. “Why?”

“For letting me be normal for an entire afternoon,” Stiles said.

Derek still looked surprised, but Stiles had to drop his hand so he could shift gears in the car. “I’m sorry you don’t get normal a whole lot,” he said.

“No,” Stiles said, “This makes up for it. I promise.”

Derek smiled a tiny bit, and then he grinned full out when he heard Stiles’s heart skipping a few beats at his expression. Stiles rolled his eyes and settled for resting his hand on Derek’s thigh as they drove to the mall.

It was a glorious afternoon, although to be honest neither Derek nor Stiles were very good at shopping. There was just too much hunter and not enough gatherer in both their DNA to succeed at things like shopping. That and Derek kept seeing things he wanted Stiles to have, and Stiles kept getting distracted by the bright colors and shiny lights. They picked a few things out for their pack, and Stiles thought they were pretty good ideas, but Derek kept glancing at their bags dubiously as if he didn’t quite trust Stiles’s judgment. They went to the gift wrap services sponsored by the women’s shelter kiosk in the middle of the mall, and paid just a little too much money to have a couple of teenagers cover their packages in a couple yards of tape, not enough wrapping paper, and frou-frou ribbons. 

Stiles insisted on stopping at the local coffee shop after they had loaded their bags into the trunk of the Camaro, and Derek rolled his eyes and acted like it was a big hassle to take Stiles to get coffee. As soon as they got there though, Derek ordered a large hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and chocolate drizzle and then grinned through Stiles teasing him about his manly man drink of sugar while Stiles just took straight coffee and then dumped a couple packs of sugar in it. 

“You’re so handy to have around,” Stiles grinned at Derek trying to wipe marshmallow fluff off of his nose and failing miserably.

“What?” Derek asked him.

“I mean, you’re really good with the saving me part, and you’re entertaining while there’s downtime. Seriously, I see no bad in this relationship.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I have nothing on you in the entertainment department. Most of the time I only save you because I’m scared I won’t get my daily dose of sarcasm, one-liners, and random flailing.”

“That’s it, I’m telling everyone,” Stiles declared.

“Telling everyone what?”

“You’re a closet comedian. If you’re funny in front of them without them prepared for it, there might be cardiac arrests and we’d have to find defibrillators and I really don’t think you have those laying around your house. Hey, we should go get our CPR certification before we throw you a coming out party.”

Derek gave him a look, but Stiles grinned because he did it before he drank his hot chocolate which completely destroyed the look of menace that Derek was attempting to pull off.

“You totally flunk mean and intimidating,” Stiles grinned at him.

Derek just grinned at Stiles, and it turned into a full blown smile when he heard Stiles’s heart beating crazy again. “Yeah, but I got you wrapped around my finger, so I don’t have to be mean and intimidating anymore. Now, I can just smile and you’ll do whatever I want.”

“Shut up, Derek,” Stiles said, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

“Okay, but you’re going to have to make me,” Derek said.

So Stiles did. It was awesome, even though neither one of them could stop smiling long enough to make it a good kiss and they ended up laughing through the entire thing. 

The coffee shop manager gave them very disapproving looks for the rest of their stay, but they didn’t care. They left the shop in high spirits to get to the car, and Derek opened Stiles door for him, and then Stiles leaned over and popped Derek’s door open, and then they made out in the car for a long time. They watched the sun set from the windshield, and then Derek sighed.

“We’ve got to get back to the house, and try and figure out what’s going on with Thor.”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah.”

They stared at each other for a while longer, and then Derek started the car and drove back to his house, where the entire pack was waiting for them.

“Oh God, we thought you were dead somewhere,” Lydia accused them as soon as they got out.

“We had pack business to take care of,” Derek growled at her. “We were fine.”

“Next time, you call us and tell us what’s going on,” Scott demanded. 

“Sorry guys,” Stiles said, “But it was really important…”

“Why does Derek smell like chocolate?” Isaac asked.

“Stiles does too, kind of,” Erica said. “Oh God, were you two spending this whole time making out?”

“How is that pack business?” Jackson asked.

“Propagation of the species?” Boyd suggested. 

“What’s propagation?” Scott asked.

“You didn’t happen to bring any food back with you, did you?” Jackson eyed Derek’s Camaro.

“Hey, we have serious issues to discuss!” Lydia said. “Like, when did Derek and Stiles start dating officially?”

“Is this seriously how you have pack meetings?” Alexander wanted to know.

“This is a very important conversation,” Erica told him, like he was suggesting that there was something more important to be discussed and that made him crazy. “Are you two getting married now? Can we call Stiles ‘mommy’?”

“I’m not your mommy,” Stiles said. “Why can’t Derek be the mommy?”

“Derek’s our dad,” Erica explained, and the ‘duh,’ was unspoken but heard loudly.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Jackson whined.

“Everyone go inside,” Stiles demanded, since they were all still on the front porch. “I swear, if you weren’t werewolves you’d all be catching your death from the cold.”

“But mommy,” Boyd said, causing everyone to stare at him with wide eyes for playing along with the rest of them, “I don’t wanna.”

Everyone started laughing, and Stiles rolled his eyes before shooing them all into the house.

“I told you we shouldn’t have had so many kids,” Stiles teased Derek as soon as they were the last ones in the porch.

“Well, stop being sexy and I’ll keep my hands off of you,” Derek said, pulling Stiles in for another kiss before they followed the pack into the house. 

Stiles lost himself in the kiss, shuddering at the feel of Derek’s hands on his face while their mouths moved together in a slow dance. “Thank you for tonight,” he whispered, as soon as Derek pulled away to rest his forehead on Stiles’s.

“One day, this will be normal for us,” Derek promised, staring into Stiles’s eyes like he could convince him that it was true.

Stiles dared to hope that Derek was going to be able to keep that vow.


	15. Chapter 15

Things did tend to calm down after everyone realized Thor was in town. Stiles hadn’t seen Steve or Dracula for a while, there was no sign of the Alpha pack, and there wasn’t any frantic planning at meetings. It was enough to make the entire pack uncomfortable and wary, after jumping at every little sound for so long their bodies weren’t adjusting to the absolute nothing that was going on.

It was a week before Christmas break, and they had finished with their sociology test when the teacher in charge had them debating current issues. He had brought up adoption, and Stiles saw Jackson slouching in his chair at the edge of the classroom.

“I just don’t see how you could love someone else’s child,” one of the boys in class named Kyle said.

Stiles rolled his eyes, thinking Kyle was absolutely retarded.

“You disagree, Mr. Stilinski?” the teacher asked him.

“Of course,” Stiles said, “Human beings are genetically engineered to love all babies. It’s how we keep the race going.”

“Of course you’re going to say that, it’s not like you’ll ever have kids since you’re a fag,” Kyle accused Stiles.

Danny and Stiles both looked furious at this statement. 

“No name calling,” the teacher tried to break in.

“Well, it’s not right,” Kyle said, “I’m glad it’s illegal for them to adopt children anyway. No kid wants their parents to be gay.”

“Really?” Jackson asked. “What do you know about it?”

Kyle turned around to look at him. “What?” He was a little surprised that Jackson, who was popular and an asshole, was taking Stiles’s side.

“Do you know what it’s like? Do you know what it’s like to not have an adult on your side all the time? Do you know what it’s like to be alone with no one looking out for you? No, you don’t, so shut the hell up. I’m grateful as fuck that my parents wanted to spend thousands of dollars to make sure that I’m not alone out there. I’d be grateful as fuck if Stiles wanted to be my dad, because I know that he’d stick up for me no matter what. You feel bad for adopted kids? I feel bad for you, because you’ll never know if your parents actually wanted you or if they just got stuck with you ‘cause they wanted to have sex. MY parents paid thousands of dollars and put up with random visits from social services to make sure that I had a good home. They had to go through ridicule when my mom wanted to have a baby shower because she didn’t ‘have me.’ They had to go through people saying ‘you never know what you’re going to get’ when ‘you get a kid from God knows where’ and take him into your home. You have no idea, so you need to shut the hell up,” Jackson had stood up and at that point was yelling at the kid, who stood back up as Jackson got into his face. “I’d rather have two dads or two moms than be stuck by myself in the system, which is a completely hellish place, in case you didn’t know.”

Danny at this point was holding Jackson back, and Stiles glared at Kyle. 

“Your best friend is a fag, of course you’d feel that way,” Kyle said. 

“And I’m adopted, asshole,” Jackson growled, and Stiles could tell that his eyes were flashing electric blue at that point. He wrestled free from Danny, and he went to take a swing at Kyle, but Stiles was between Jackson and Kyle in an instant, holding Jackson’s fist. 

“He’s not worth it,” Stiles told Jackson, looking him in the eyes until they slowly turned back to a non-threatening sky blue. “He’s so not worth it.”

Stiles hadn’t been prepared for the punch from behind but he felt it when it got him straight in the middle of the back of his neck, and he fell forward onto Jackson, who handed him off to Danny before he attacked Kyle. 

Danny was already texting Scott and holding Stiles up with his free hand while he did it, and Scott, Isaac and Boyd came into the room before Jackson could beat Kyle into an unrecognizable pulp. They pulled Jackson off the kid while the teacher’s attempts were blatantly disregarded, and they pulled him out of the classroom to calm him down.

All of the boys got sent to the principal’s office, except for Kyle, who had to go right to the nurse’s. 

“Who wants to tell me what happened?” the new principal asked. She was tall and thin and abnormally beautiful with long blond hair pulled up into a knot at the nape of her neck. She had blue eyes that flashed, and it didn’t look like she was going to put up with any shit at all. Stiles vaguely remembered that it was her first day, and they were going to have a convocation at the end of the school day to welcome her. He was starting to get a sinking feeling that he knew who she was, and most of that feeling came from the sudden uncomfortableness he started feeling around his shoulder blades, where his wings came from.

Stiles sucked it up and sighed. “Kyle was making some derogatory and homophobic comments during a class discussion about adoption, and Jackson feels strongly about all of those issues. Jackson was baited into the fight, and Danny and I went to hold him back but Kyle attacked me from behind.”

“You’re saying that Kyle instigated the fight?” the principal asked, staring at Stiles. The look made him crack his back a little, because his wings wanted out. 

“Yes,” Stiles said, gritting his teeth so that he wouldn’t give into the sensation that she was giving him.

“You and Danny both felt the need to hold Jackson back?” she said.

“Yes,” Stiles said. God, it was worse than trying not to sport a boner when Derek was present.

“And why did all these other boys come into the classroom, leaving their classrooms in order to break up the fight?” the principal, who hadn’t shared her name with them, asked.

“We’re on the Lacrosse team,” Scott said, “We’re supposed to take care of our teammates.”

“Did you in any way attack Kyle while he was there?” the principal asked.

“No,” Danny said. “No one hit Kyle except for Jackson, and that was only after he hit Stiles.”

“Regardless,” the principal said, “You all took part. You will be spending the rest of this week in detention for thirty minutes after school, every day until Christmas break. Now, if we’re finished, I need to call all of your parents and explain the situation to them. Thank you so much, boys, for making my first day here such a memorable one.”

The pack had enough grace to look down at that point.

“I’ll see you in the library after the convocation,” the principal dismissed them.

“Who was that?” Boyd asked as they were leaving the main office.

“I really think that we don’t want to know,” Stiles said.

“You mean, she’s one of them?” Scott asked, looking concerned and panicked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Stiles said. “She looks almost exactly like Mr. Odinsson.”

“She was pretty,” Isaac said.

“Shut up, Isaac,” Scott said.

“No, really though,” Isaac said.

“Man’s got a point,” Boyd commented. “But I wouldn’t want to get up in that.”

“Guys,” Stiles said, “I think that was Hel.”

Everyone stopped in the hall. “Are you sure?” Jackson asked him.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, trying to rub his shoulder blades. “I’m pretty dang sure.”

Jackson reached over and started rubbing his back for him, and it seemed like he didn’t even realize what he was doing. “Do we need to call Derek?”

“We need to make sure Stiles is never alone, especially when we’re in detention,” Scott said. “We can call Derek, but I don’t know what he can do in this situation.”

“Maybe he can get Stiles’s dad to get him out of this?” Isaac asked. “I mean, he’s the sheriff, he should be able to help…”

“We need to know what’s going on though,” Stiles said, “and I really don’t think that we’re going to find out unless I’m there.”

Scott looked like he really didn’t like that plan, and Isaac was already on the phone with Derek explaining things. Jackson kept rubbing Stiles’s back, so Stiles was happy but he really wanted to go outside and fly for a while. It felt right being in the air, but he understood that people would probably flip out if he pulled his wings out in the middle of class or something.

Spanish class with Thor was turning out to be the most entertaining part of Stiles’s day. Thor, or Mr. Odinsson as everyone struggled to call him because not a single kid didn’t know what his first name was even if they didn’t know he was THE THOR, gave them all the answers to their work again, and then he spent the rest of the day grilling them for the best clubs in Beacon Hills, where he could go to hang out with cool people, and what everyone thought was the best breed of dog. 

The convocation was painless, and to none of the pack’s surprise their new principal was introduced as Helen Lokisdottir. She gave a very short speech about her hopes for Beacon Hills High, and in a matter of thirty minutes she established herself as a better principal than Mr. Argent. Not that it was a high hurdle to pass, as most of the students were still upset about the whole camera fiasco and his totalitarian approach to leadership. It was a little discomforting to see that Hel did a better job at earning student trust and respect than Mr. Argent, truth be told, and the pack kind of gathered around Allison as a lot of students whispered loudly around her that their new principal was better than her grandfather.

The boys showed up in the library for detention, although Kyle was not going to be joining them because Ms. Lokisdottir had a strict policy on hate words and Kyle wouldn’t be joining them at school for two weeks while he thought about his actions and composed apology letters to Jackson, Stiles, and their teacher for disrupting an educational discussion and to the local newspaper for wasting taxpayers’ money that could have been spent on classroom time. Stiles briefly wondered if Thor would have to compose similar letters in the future, but he didn’t want to chance the question before he found out what their intentions were in the first place.

The boys were sitting quietly in the library when Thor walked in and put his bag down on the desk. “The principal wanted me to take over detention today, so you dudes are stuck with me,” he said with a smile. He pulled a slinky out of his bag and started playing with it.

“Um, Th… Mr. Odinsson?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah?” Thor asked, looking up from his slinky.

“We were just wondering, um… what brought you to Beacon Hills?”

“Oh, Ms. Lokisdottir asked me to come. She’s been my best friend for like, ages man. There’s like, family drama and stuff going on, and she said it might be a good idea for me to show up here.”

“Family drama?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah, like, there were these dudes that I used to hang out with forever ago, you know? And then there was this like… fight, and they had to move away so I couldn’t chill with them anymore. It was totally harsh. Anyway, some of their relatives are like, having problems, and that’s totally harshin’ on me? So I thought I’d come down here and find out what’s going on.”

“Um… yeah,” Stiles said. “How are you affected by their drama?”

“It’s like a spiritual thing, you know? When you hang out with people long enough, they like, take parts of you when they leave? And so I can totally feel it when one of them gets hurt, and sometimes it even hurts me.”

“Which parts of you did they take?” Stiles asked.

“Oh man, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Thor laughed, picking up the slinky again.

“I might,” Stiles said.

“I mean, it’s like they took all my anger, you know? I used to fight all the time, and then I hung out with them and once I got hurt, so it’s like I put all of my anger into them. So now I can’t get angry anymore, but they’re like, always on the verge of totally getting pissed off. So they got mad at me and moved away, but I couldn’t get angry enough to bring them back? But now one of them got hurt real bad and it’s bringing the whole group down, so I’ve got to try and bring them all back so I can protect them. Anyway, it probably doesn’t make any sense to you dudes, ‘cause you’re all young and stuff, but que sera sera and c’est la vie and all that.”

It was with that statement that Stiles realized Thor had no idea who he was. The relief was so tangent that all of the wolves he was sitting with felt it, and he watched all of them immediately relax. Danny saw that they were relaxed, and he looked at Stiles, trying to figure out what had just happened, but Stiles shook his head a little to indicate that he’d tell him later. 

Detention lasted a little longer, and then Ms. Lokisdottir came in to dismiss them all from detention and to tell them that she hoped they learned their lesson. Her presence caused Stiles’s back to itch some more, and it was a little harder to control his wings coming out this time because he didn’t have all that tension in his body. 

“We gotta go,” Stiles whispered to Jackson, “or I’m really going to embarrass myself around her.”

Jackson snickered because he wanted to take that comment the wrong way, and honestly it was impossible not to, but he gestured to everyone else that he was hauling Stiles to the parking lot. Isaac got into his Jeep with him after demanding the keys, and Stiles handed them over and curled up into a ball in the passenger side. 

Isaac drove quickly out to Derek’s house, where Stiles barely stepped foot on the ground before he was tearing his shirt off and flying high along the lines of the treetops, where he wouldn’t be seen by any casual observer. His wings gloried in their ability to be free from the confines of wherever the hell they went and Stiles felt like he could breathe easier off the ground like that.

“You mean he could control himself around Hel?” he heard as he got back towards the house. “God, I’ve never heard of anyone with control like that. She made us this way because her power inside ourselves responds immediately so that she can find us on a battle field. I can’t control my wings around her at all,” Alexander was saying as Stiles tried to land more gracefully. He still stumbled a little bit, but at least he wasn’t eating dirt this time.

“It’s probably ‘cause I’m not full blood,” Stiles shrugged it off. “It’s not a big deal.”

Alexander snorted. “Yeah, if you were the only half-blood to have ever existed, I would have totally bought it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

Stiles didn’t really care. He was starving. “What do we have to eat?”

Derek was staring at him, and Stiles remembered that he didn’t have his shirt on. He flushed and looked around, but it didn’t look like anyone was going to help him out. It didn’t matter, most of them walked around without their shirts on all the time anyway. Stiles was uncomfortable, especially with the way that Derek’s eyes were tracking his movements, but he bluffed it out. Except for the whole blushing part. Other than that, he looked completely nonchalant about the whole thing. 

“I’m just saying it’s impressive,” Alexander said, “Especially since you’re so young.”

“Are you saying that it’s impressive because I’m the youngest member of your species and you’re proud of me like the weirdo parents who brag that their four year old is going to be a professional ball player ‘cause he can hit the ball off the t-ball stick?”

“No,” Alexander said with a smile.

“Okay, then… thanks, I guess,” Stiles said, and thanked Scott for finding his shirt for him. He tried pulling his wings in a few times, and maybe faked that he couldn’t for a tiny bit so that Derek would come over and kiss him until they went away. It was good to have superpowers, but it sucked that his boyfriend had them too, ‘cause the smirk that he gave Stiles told him he knew what was on the up and up.

They briefed Derek on what was going on at school, and Stiles explained his hypothesis that Thor and Hel actually had no idea who he was. Alexander said the theory was sound, but he didn’t want to gamble on it so he insisted that Stiles stay around his pack as much as possible for the upcoming time period that he had gods at his school.

Derek rode in the Jeep home with Stiles, but they saw that there was an unfamiliar car parked outside of the Stilinski house. “You expecting company?” Derek asked.

“No,” Stiles said.

“Keep driving. I’ll send Alexander over to check it out,” Derek said.

“Send Scott. It’ll be keeping our cards closer to our chest,” Stiles said.

Derek nodded and immediately started texting Scott. “Maybe we should have sent Jackson. He responds better to social cues…”

Stiles looked at Derek. “Man, we should have thought of that earlier.”

Derek shook his head. “Well, let’s just hope that things are okay.”

“So, Mr. Hale,” Stiles said, parking his Jeep at the local Lacrosse field until Scott reported back to them. He turned the engine off and looked at Derek, staring at him. “How are we going to fill the time until Scott gets back to us?”

“God, you’re a perv,” Derek said with a grin.

“I’m seventeen, and a male…” but then Stiles was occupied with other things, so he didn’t have to explain too much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my little adoption rant at the beginning there. I actually had this conversation once with a bunch of ignorant folk back a hundred years ago when I was in high school, and I ended up in the principal's office, but punishment didn't actually get doled out like this. So, this is what I wished would have happened to that kid.
> 
> Oh, and Thor in this story? He was actually based off of a real high school Spanish teacher I had once. Seriously. Dude's name was Alex and we never learned his last name 'cause he never told us.


	16. Chapter 16

It turned out the person at Stiles’s house was just a trainee, a girl with long blond hair and a twinkle in her eyes when she saw Derek walking through the door after receiving a text from Scott giving them the all clear. “I just had some questions to ask the Sheriff about the Academy,” she smiled at Derek, like he would know exactly what she was talking about.

“Oh,” Derek said, “Yeah, I should probably start packing for that, too.”

“Two weeks in LA,” the girls said, “I didn’t ever think I’d see the day I’d be spending two weeks in LA at the Police Academy.”

“They’re getting a crash course,” the Sheriff explained, “because we’re in kind of emergency overtime because most of my department got wiped out.”

Stiles nodded, but he still felt uncomfortable because Derek hadn’t told him that he was about to be going to LA for two weeks when there were gods and Alphas and who knew what else running around Beacon Hills.

The girl was flirting with Derek, too. She joked about them being roommates at the academy, and how they were going to spend their free time together touring the city. She didn’t seem to even care when Stiles reached down and grabbed Derek’s hand and shot her meaningful looks. Maybe she was just stupid and didn’t pick up on it.

Stiles spent a long few minutes fighting his wings.

Derek wrapped his arm around Stiles shoulders though, and he kissed Stiles’s temple while the girl was rambling about beach time. Stiles decided that he didn’t care if the girl picked up on it or not. He trusted Derek, even with curvy, blonde, and vapid here talking his ear off. 

The sheriff was smiling at the way that Derek was handling the situation, and Stiles was happy that his dad approved. He relaxed more into Derek’s arms, and he was slowly nodding off to sleep before he was jerked out of it while the girl said her good-byes. 

Stiles waved to her, too interested in drooling on Derek’s shoulder to do anything else. Derek shook him a little, chuckling at him, and then he carried him up to Stiles’s room. 

Stiles mumbled about something, and Derek just kissed his forehead and tucked him in, telling him he would be downstairs talking with his dad for a while. Stiles thought he might have said something else, and he kind of remembered Derek laughing, but then he was asleep and nothing else seemed to matter.

It wasn’t like a normal dream, even though Stiles felt the familiar landscape of the warehouse wrapping around him. He could still smell the molten gold, over the top of the old blood and terror that coated the walls. 

“It’s just a dream,” Stiles told himself, even though his heart was telling him something else.

“Is it, though?” a voice came from the darkness.

“I’m in my bed at home,” Stiles said. “If I want to, I can wake whenever…”

“You might want to wake, then,” Vlad said, stepping out of the darkness. He went over to stare at the large window towards the top of one wall. It kept shattering and then melting back into one pane, over and over again.

Stiles tried to wake, three or four times he tried to wake up, but he couldn’t.

“Certainly, with your obsession with research of the supernatural, you have come across a few tales about me?” Dracula asked him.

“You can dreamwalk,” Stiles said.

“Hm,” Vlad smiled. It wasn’t a very comforting expression on his face.

“Fine,” Stiles said. “Let’s get this over with. What kind of torture do I get to go through this time?”

“I’m not going to torture you,” Vlad said, holding his hand up to the sunlight that poured through the window.

Stiles paused. “Why not? It’s been like, a running theme with your people now for a couple of years.”

“Yeah. The test was never meant to go on like that. You confused my people a lot, Stiles Stilinski. It took us forever to figure out that your mother wasn’t human. We wondered if it was something to do with you being raised American, and maybe Americans were really as badass as they always thought they were, but your mother’s little secret was kept very well. So well, in fact, that Hel herself doesn’t know about you.”

Stiles sat on the cold warehouse floor. “Why do you think she’s here?”

“Because Thor felt a… well, to reference your ‘Star Wars,’ a disturbance in the Force. He actually felt your father’s pain, especially recently, since he knows that he has to leave you. And where Thor goes, Hel follows. She has ‘daddy issues’ and hopes that one day Thor will become angry again so that they can continue fighting with Loki.”

“How does she plan to do that?”

“She wants to gather the Berserkers and drain them of Thor’s anger. Make them into regular little boys again, make Thor get back his need for war.”

“Why does she want war? No one wants war,” Stiles said, “It’s expensive for everyone involved and afterwards all people do is blame each other for it and say how diplomacy would have worked better…”

“Gods don’t work that way,” Vlad said, walking over to Stiles and sitting on the warehouse floor across from him. “War is the closest that people ever get to True Belief, and that is what gives gods their power.”

Stiles paused. “That’s why you want me.”

“Of course,” Vlad said. “You are quite the clever boy.”

“You’re tired of being a monster,” Stiles said. 

“I’m tired of people remembering me as a monster. I have only ever protected my homeland. You would wage war that would leave people with nothing but Belief.”

“You want me to turn you into a god,” Stiles breathed. 

“Is it a horrible ambition?” Vlad asked him. 

Stiles stared at him. “War would not end because there was another god,” Stiles said uncertainly.

“No, but then my homeland would not be as vulnerable. I would not have to make sacrifices…”

“Look, I don’t mean to preach at you, but Israel is the homeland of the One God, and if you notice there are three major factions fighting over that homeland. I don’t think that becoming a god would exactly help your homeland…”

“But look at the power that One God has, people carry out wars and increase Belief on a daily basis. I have been turned into a story that causes children to fear the dark, but there is no Belief, no strong, healthy Belief. If I had that, I would have power…”

“I’m not going to fight for you, Vlad,” Stiles said. “You won’t get what you want from me.”

“But I will,” Vlad smiled. “You see, I know what you care about.”

Stiles sat up straighter. “What?”

“You will come to me, or I will take your little pack, and I will destroy them one by one. I will start with your little friends, and if you don’t come to me then I will take your father, your lover, and this town, and I will make this place such an eternal night that the Belief that people will have in me will make the One God’s Enemy look like a fuzzy little koala.”

Stiles blinked. “Koala?”

“Seriously, that’s what you took away from this threat?”

“Sorry…” Stiles said. “So say I say no? Say I just go tell my pack what you’ve said? Say I try and pull Thor and Hel into this…”

“I thought we just established that Thor was weak, and Hel’s power is so limited that she can’t pull together more than six Valkyrie?” Dracula asked.

“But see, they have me,” Stiles said. “You’ve just said that if you had me, you would be able to wage wars…”

“I have over four hundred Berserkers at my command. I have thousand year old Alpha werewolves. I…”

“But you don’t have me,” Stiles said. “And that is what frightens you. I am what puts your plans out of wack.”

“You don’t even know how to wield that power that you have…”

“No, I don’t,” Stiles said smiling, “But Hel and Thor do, and I think what’s more than that, I think that I have access to resources that I don’t know about yet, but you do. That’s why you’ve suddenly taken enough interest in me to come all the way here, to leave your homeland, to try and personally recruit me. Because I think you thought I was going to underestimate myself like a typical teenager, convince me that I have to follow you because you can threaten me or my friends… but you want me too much.”

Vlad was angry. His expression hadn’t changed at all, but in the dream Stiles could feel his anger. 

“You were going to wait until my dad left my side, weren’t you? But you couldn’t. And that means that you saw something moving into place that wasn’t part of your original plan. It probably wasn’t the Norse gods, because you don’t hold them in much regard. No, it had to be something else that made you panic and make this move too quickly…” Stiles said, thinking.

“Wake up, forget,” Vlad said, like he was casting a spell.

Stiles smiled. He remembered Deaton’s words, ‘immediate intent, and enough stubbornness to believe it can happen.’ “I’ll wake up, but I won’t forget,” Stiles cast the spell on himself, and before he woke up he saw Vlad’s look of surprise. 

Stiles lay in his bed and he glanced at the clock next to him. It was five in the morning. 

Now he had to figure out exactly what he recently had access to that had made Dracula so worried that he wouldn’t be able to control Stiles that he had made his move a couple years too early.

Stiles slipped out of his bed and headed straight for the shower. He smiled as he cleaned himself, and then he put on his favorite outfit. He walked downstairs and left a note for his dad, telling him that he was going over to Derek’s before school started. 

He got into the Jeep, and for once he wasn’t scared to be by himself. He turned the radio off so that he could think as he drove to the Hale House, and he climbed out into the slow sounds of the forest in the morning. He heard the wind creaking through the trees, and he smiled at that, too. 

He let himself into the mansion via a broken window, and he climbed the steps to Derek’s room, where he found his boyfriend sprawled out on a wrought iron bed that looked strangely appropriate in the middle of the soot-walled room. He stepped lightly over the dirty floorboards that had been swept a time or two recently and he climbed into bed with his boyfriend.

Derek was asleep, his long black eyelashes starkly contrasting with his moonpale skin. Stiles smiled at the sight, his boyfriend was beautiful, and it wasn’t just physically. Derek did whatever it took to keep all of them safe, even if some of his decisions were ones that Stiles didn’t agree with. As soon as it had become apparent that his territory was in danger, he had no hesitation to pull the Argents in with him to help protect his pack, his family, and Stiles and Scott, even though he hated the Argents with a passion. He had been prepared to kill Lydia and then Jackson when he thought that they were murdering with no motive whatsoever, to protect those around him. 

Derek was buried under a few sheets, but Stiles knew he wasn’t cold. Werewolves ran hot, he knew, just like he did. 

Stiles stared at Derek a while longer, and then he kissed his boyfriend on the lips. Derek cracked on blue-green eye and stared sleepily at Stiles, smiling when he saw that they were in bed together. “Hey,” Derek greeted him, his voice thick and scratchy with sleep.

Stiles kissed Derek’s cheek, and slowly made his way to his neck, laving him under his ear with his tongue, tasting a patch of skin that had Derek gasping. He licked and nibbled his way down Derek’s neck, made his way to Derek’s clavicle.

“Stiles, what’s…” Derek tried to ask.

“Shh…” Stiles said. “I’m thinking.”

Derek looked confused, but didn’t say a word as Stiles made a very thorough exploration of Derek’s torso, pulling the sheets back to find a naked Alpha lying underneath.

Stiles skipped Derek’s groin, making a slow oral trek of Derek’s legs, kissing and licking his way down one and up the other, where he bit the inside of Derek’s thighs to open them up.

Derek spread his legs, and Stiles settled between them like he belonged there, like he would always belong there. Stiles glanced up to find Derek’s pale eyes studying him, his teeth worrying his lower lip in an attempt to not talk.

Stiles stared at Derek, hard and erect and Stiles hadn’t even touched him there yet. Derek wanted this, it was obvious, but Stiles was nervous. He had never done anything like this before.

He looked up at Derek again, and he was waiting for Stiles, silent and Stiles could tell that if he wanted to he could walk away and Derek wouldn’t hold grudges. Derek wasn’t like that. 

Stiles was wanted by Dracula to be a general in a war in an attempt at godhood, and Stiles was nervous about this? 

Of course he was, because this was important. It meant something. And that thought gave Stiles the courage he needed to run his tongue up Derek, balls to tip, licking the little drop of fluid at the head of Derek’s penis.

It tasted good, Stiles was surprised. He always heard about girls bitching about this, but Derek felt smooth under Stiles’s tongue, warm and hot. Stiles slid his mouth down around him, and he felt good inside his mouth. It fit, perfectly, and Stiles slid his mouth up and down Derek’s shaft, lightly, leaving spit to slide down as he slid up.

“Fuck,” Derek gasped, “Stiles…”

It sounded like encouragement to Stiles, and he kept going. He knew not to use his teeth, and he didn’t suck too hard because despite what he had heard he never thought that would be a very pleasant sensation. He created a small amount of suction inside of his mouth though, like he would have on a lollipop, and continued bobbing his head.

The sounds Derek was making made him hard, and he had to reach into his pants with his own hand and squeeze himself at the base of his cock so that he wouldn’t come. He felt Derek dripping slowly into his mouth, and he took his free hand to slide along the base of Derek’s dick in tandem with his mouth, a move that brought Derek’s knees up to rest at Stiles’s shoulders. He felt Derek’s hands slipping through his short hair and immediately resolved to grow it out a little because he wanted to feel Derek hanging on to his head while he did this. 

When Stiles thought that he had enough control over himself, he spread both of his hands up Derek’s chest, stroking his skin and tweaking his nipples, dragging his fingerprints down Derek’s skin. 

Derek pulled Stiles off of him and pulled him up his body, taking Stiles’s mouth with his own and thrusting against Stiles’s jean clad groin. Stiles moaned at the friction, the denim rubbing him in an almost painful sensation. Derek’s hand was sliding down Stiles’s body and Stiles gasped when it slipped past the waist of his pants. He felt Derek’s long fingers wrapping around his shaft, sliding softly up and then down, cupping his balls gently before returning to circle Stiles’s cock again.

It was too much, and Stiles mewled into Derek’s mouth as he came hot onto Derek’s hand and felt Derek’s responding release through his own shirt. 

Derek held him close as Stiles got control over his body again, slowly. They kissed a while longer, not quite ready to leave this moment behind them.

“Good morning,” Derek whispered into Stiles’s ear.  
Stiles blushed, and Derek chuckled beneath him. 

“It’s a little late for that,” Derek kissed his reddened cheek.

Stiles tried to bury his face in Derek’s neck, and Derek let him for a while.

“Thank you,” Derek whispered into his ear. “That was perfect. You’re perfect.”

Stiles looked up into Derek’s eyes and saw that he was being sincere. He smiled like a big dork. “Yeah?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Derek teased him.

Stiles laughed, but he saw the clock next to Derek’s bed then. “Shit, I’m going to be late for school.”

Derek laughed. “You might want to borrow some clothes,” he said. “We kind of ruined those.”

Stiles blushed, but he was too busy letting Derek out of bed so he could grab a pair of jeans and a black vee-neck tee-shirt. Stiles felt kind of weird wearing Derek’s clothes, but at the same time he was happy to be dressed in his boyfriend’s clothing. He changed quickly, stealing kisses between pulling on dark fabric that actually fit him better than his own clothing. Not that it took a lot for that to happen.

“We need to talk when I get out of school today,” Stiles said quickly.

Derek looked worried for a moment.

“No, it’s not about this,” Stiles gestured madly at the bed and his dirty clothing laying haphazardly on it. “I figured something out this morning.”

Derek looked relieved. “Okay,” he said.

Stiles stole one last kiss before he drove to school, smiling. It was worth all the shit that Jackson and Scott gave him over wearing Derek’s clothing to have shared that with Derek this morning. He wouldn’t have traded it for anything, even if Vlad had offered to go away. Stiles knew his pack was going to survive this, as soon as he could figure out what it was that had Dracula nervous.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do I suck at verb tenses so bad? I mean... really? Anyway, sorry for the long delay. As my story is winding down, I keep having to go back and check for continuity, 'cause I don't write with outlines or anything and I forget what I've already established... I know, I'm a bad writer with impatience issues... 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

“Maybe it’s the magic?” Lydia asked as they were all camped out in Derek’s living room. Someone had brought a ton of blankets and pillows, and they spread them out on the floorboards on an even larger blanket, and everyone was cuddling. It was surreal, in Stiles’s mind, that most of these people couldn’t even talk to each other a few months ago and there was Erica’s head, resting on Jackson’s leg. 

Stiles had told them about his dream conversation with Dracula as soon as they gathered at Derek’s that night. It was just the teenagers and Derek though, because the adults were all busy doing some sort of adult thing. Together. Without them. Stiles tried very hard not to think about what his dad, Mr. Argent, Dr. Deacon, Ms. McCall, and apparently Ms. Morrell were all getting up to together. They decided to brainstorm together until they came up with an idea.

“Maybe it’s the fact that Derek and Stiles finally decided to stop eyefucking each other and just get it on?” Jackson suggested. He was hit in the head with a pillow by Danny.

“Maybe Stiles wasn’t supposed to find out about his past yet?” Scott asked.

“Stiles wouldn’t have found out anything if the Alpha pack had stayed away, there wouldn’t have been a reason for it,” Allison said. “It’s more likely the magic… or something to do with the progression of Stiles’ and Derek’s relationship.”

“But… Stiles and Derek weren’t getting together until after the arrival of the Alpha pack, were they?” Danny asked, still trying to figure out the timeline. “I mean, maybe they were, what with Derek doing that strip-tease in Stiles’s room that one time…”

“What?” Scott asked. “Derek did a strip tease in Stiles’s room? With Danny there?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles said, hiding his head in his arms.

“It’s true?” Scott asked, looking incredulous.

“It wasn’t a strip tease,” Derek protested.

“Totally a strip tease,” Danny reaffirmed, “and it wasn’t aimed at me.”

“I had blood on my shirt, and Stiles was trying to use me to get information out of Danny,” Derek said, glaring at the pack who was staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths.

“That wasn’t for my benefit, you don’t have to lie,” Danny said, and Stiles was kind of shocked that Danny was pushing for a reaction from Derek.

“Danny, shut up,” Stiles said.

“Oh no,” Erica said, “I want to hear more.”

“Erica, shut up,” Stiles said.

“Was there music?” Isaac asked. “Did Derek do a dance?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles said again, but it was hard to hear him because his face was covered by his flannel shirt that he had pulled up around to hide his bright red skin.

Derek kind of grinned at Stiles, and the pack stared at him ‘cause he had the ‘oh-my-god-kittens’ expression on his face. They weren’t quite used to seeing that on Derek’s face. 

“Can we get back to talking about my dream?” Stiles asked, his face still in his shirt.

“Your ears are red, Stiles,” Scott pointed out helpfully.

Stiles flipped Scott off.

“Okay,” Derek said, “Let’s get back to talking about Stiles’s dream. It has to be the magic. They’re scared of Stiles learning magic. Why would they be scared of that?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said, “Why would anyone be scared of a half-Berserker, half-Valkyrie learning magic?” The thing is, Scott doesn’t sound sarcastic when he’s saying this. He honestly sounds like he has no idea why that would be an intimidating thing.

“Scott,” Stiles starts to say.

“Maybe because it puts an unknown quantity to Stiles’s power?” Lydia suggests. “Maybe it…”

“Maybe,” Alexander came into the house, followed by the adults, “It’s because Alain Lafourche took Stiles in as an apprentice.”

“What, who?” Stiles asked. “Who took me as an apprentice? And how do you guys know what we’re talking about anyway?”

“We were having a conversation with our friendly neighborhood veterinarian,” Stiles’s dad said. “Because he hasn’t been completely honest about… well, anything at all.”

Dr. Deaton had the grace to look slightly apologetic about their conversation.

“Dr. Deaton is well known in certain circles,” Ms. Morrell said, “As Alain Lafourche.”

“Um,” Stiles said, “that name isn’t ringing any bells, sorry.”

“The Lafourche family are quite infamous,” Ms. Morrell was explaining, “Especially in places where they have settled down, certain communities in France, Quebec, and New Orleans…”

“I wouldn’t have started teaching you if I had known what your mother was,” Dr. Deaton said, “I only suspected that the Batory were magical, not that they were magic…”

The sheriff glared at Dr. Deaton. “You wouldn’t have? Why not?” like he was offended for Stiles or something.

“I don’t believe that a being with Stiles’s power should have more power,” Dr. Deaton said, shrugging. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“Okay, because it’s so likely that Dracula isn’t a total cheat when it comes to power?” Stiles asked. “I think that I should learn everything that I can…”

“You don’t need the magic,” Alexander said. “It’s not necessary, and magic has a way of controlling you if you use too much.”

“Is this a Willow moment?” Stiles asked, “Are my hair and eyes going to go all black and I’m going to like, suck words out of books before I raise an ancient Satanic temple or something?”

“You watch way too much TV,” Dr. Deaton said.

“Hey, Joss isn’t like, regular TV,” Stiles protested. 

“Stiles,” the sheriff said, to remind him to stick to the subject.

Stiles frowned, but most of his friends were trying not to smile. 

“So, Dr. Deaton is like, a grand master witch or something?” Scott asked.

“Or something,” Ms. Morrell said, looking at Dr. Deaton to explain.

“We can go with that,” Dr. Deaton agreed, being allergic to talking about himself as always.

Ms. Morrell sighed, but she took the seat that Danny offered her on the couch. Jackson got up so that Ms. McCall could have his seat, and Stiles kind of stared at that show of manners. Who knew Jackson knew how to be a decent human being?

“So why would Dr. Deaton teaching me magic make Dracula all panicky?” Stiles asked.

“The Lafourche Family is well-known in supernatural circles because they are the only family that will take anyone in and teach them magic. They are not as picky about things like blood lines as other magical families,” Chris Argent said. “Essentially, they teach anyone with any potential whatsoever.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, “Why does me learning magic threaten Dracula?”

“Because you are an unknown quantity,” Dr. Deaton said. “Not only that, the method that my family uses pulls magic out of an existing well that the user already has access to. As your mother’s side of the family is essentially magic, and not humans limited by the amount of power that they can draw, this would make you a weapon that would be uncontrollable by outside forces.”

“So a regular magic user would be like, an AK47, and me using magic…”

“Would give you potential power equivalent to an atom bomb,” Dr. Deaton said. 

“I’m like the Silver Surfer?” Stiles asked, “A galactic entity?”

“Somewhat, without the time traveling capability,” Dr. Deaton said wryly.

Stiles smiled, knowing that he just found out a secret about Dr. Deaton’s off-time. Most people wouldn’t get that particular Marvel reference.

“That’s badass,” Stiles said, smiling.

“Yes, well, I won’t be teaching you now that I know,” Dr. Deaton said, “Because as much fun as I think having a teenage atom bomb running around with your impulsivity issues…”

“No, I get it,” Stiles said, “bad idea all around.”

“But now that Dracula knows that Stiles has this power,” Derek said, “it wouldn’t stop him from forcing him to learn…”

“What I don’t understand,” Boyd said, “is why Dracula didn’t think of this earlier…”

“Stiles’s mother hiding what she was has a lot to do with it,” the sheriff said. “My side would allow Stiles to command magic, but her side would give him that unlimited potential. The fact that he learned how to cast a protection circle with almost no training clued Dracula into his power faster than we figured it out. Dracula has more practice with magic than almost any other entity on the planet.”

“Who would have more?” Isaac asked.

“Lucifer,” Dr. Deaton said grimly. “Lucifer is like Stiles in that he is a creature of magic and he has the ability to tap into that source and command it.”

“Shit,” Scott said.

“Scott, language,” Mrs. McCall said.

“Lucifer is real?” Stiles asked.

“He is,” Dr. Deaton sighed. 

“So Dracula would set Stiles up as his own Lucifer, and Dracula would essentially try to become… Christ?” Derek asked.

“Exactly,” Dr. Deaton said.

“Except that Stiles is going to refuse to play along,” the sheriff said. “We’re going to find a way out of this.”

“There’s something else that goes into this,” Dr. Deaton said, looking at Alexander. Alexander nodded, and then they both looked at Derek.

“What?” Derek asked. He looked worried, which wasn’t all that unusual, but this time he looked like he might panic because he knew it was about Stiles.

“Stiles shouldn’t be able to learn as quickly as he is learning,” Alexander said. “Is there something that you are doing to make him this way?”

“What?” Stiles asked.

“Even with all of that,” Alexander made hand gestures that were so reminiscent of Stiles’s own that the rest of the pack giggled a little, “all of the power you have inside, you’re super focused.”

“You don’t think that’s the Adderall?” Stiles asked.

“No, I think it has more to do with you and Derek growing up in the same town. How long have you actually known Derek?” Alexander asked.

Stiles and Derek stared at each other. “I mean, just this past year, right?” Stiles asked him.

“They met after Derek’s family…” the sheriff started to say, “Derek and Laura spent the night at the police station, the same night that Stiles’s mother died and Stiles was there with me while I was filling out reports. Derek looked after Stiles, it kept him busy and Stiles was too out of it…”

“We met before that,” Derek said, “Stiles came by the house sometimes with his mother, although he probably doesn’t remember that. I was at school most of the time, especially as he got older, but he followed me around when he was really young…”

“What?” Stiles asked.

“I’m the one who gave you your nickname,” Derek said, smiling. “I couldn’t say your other name and I eventually just forgot it.”

Stiles stared at Derek some more, even though Alexander was smiling. “So you really are mates then?”

“Okay, how did you come up with that conclusion?” Stiles asked. 

Derek said, “Yes,” at the same time. 

“You insist everyone call you by a name that Derek gave you,” Alexander said. “Words have power, as Dr. Deaton should have explained to you. Your insisting that everyone call you by a name your mate gave you has been you acknowledging your mate’s claim on you ever since you were little. Having a mate, especially for a Valkyrie, is like chaining him or her to the Earth… there’s a lot of the metaphysical that goes into this, but for now that should suffice…”

“And having a mate as a werewolf gives him a share of my control, also,” Derek stated, as if he were waiting for Alexander to contradict him.

“Yes, exactly,” Alexander said. “You two must have been set up, because this argues that your situation has been planned for a while. The only god I can think of who could arrange something like this…”

“Is Freyja,” the sheriff said, looking at Alexander, who simply nodded.

“Why is Freyja concerning herself in these matters?” Mr. Argent asked.

“Because she wants Thor back to full power,” Stiles said, thinking. “Do you think that means that whatever the outcome to this fight is will have some effect on Odin? I can’t see her wanting Thor back at full power for any other reason.”

“You think Loki is trying to make an attempt at the throne like in the Thor movie?” Scott asked.

Everyone looked at Scott in shock.

“That is a possibility,” Alexander said, not quite realizing that Scott wasn’t known for his great ideas.

“So Stiles has the ability to give Thor his anger back,” Isaac suggested, “Because he’s a ‘galactic entity,’ he can do that, right?”

“Yes,” Alexander said slowly. 

“So Stiles could make a deal with Thor and Hel to get them to fight against Dracula on our side,” Danny said. “He wouldn’t have to do it just because he can.”

“I don’t think it would take much convincing,” Alexander said, “Hel loves herself a good fight.”

“So now we wait until we can find Hel and Thor alone to give them a proposition,” Stiles said.

“Detention,” Jackson said.

“Stiles,” the sheriff said, “what’s this about detention?”

“See dad,” Stiles started explaining, but Jackson apologized for getting the rest of the pack in trouble. Once the adults understood why Jackson got into a fight at school, they were a lot more lenient about the punishment, but none of them thought the decision Hel made was unfair. They told boys that violence wasn’t a good answer to their problems, but seeing as how they were gearing up with war against Dracula the whole situation seemed a little ludicrous. 

It didn’t matter, because the boys and Lydia and Allison showed up for detention the next day, looking focused and ready to talk.

“Whoa, I didn’t know that you chicks were supposed to be here today,” Thor said, staring at them.

“We’re not. You might want to call the principal in so that we can talk to her,” Lydia said. “We have an offer that you might need to take into consideration.”

“Um, okay,” Thor said, and he pulled his cell phone out to text his friend.

Hel came into the room, a little confused about why they were all sitting there. “What is this proposition? You can’t get out of detention…”

“We accept our punishment,” Stiles said, “But we have an offer that you might want to hear about.”

Hel sat on Thor’s desk, staring at them. “What is your proposition?”

“The proposition comes from my Alpha, Derek Hale,” Stiles said.

“Your Alpha?” Hel sat forward. 

“We are the Hale pack,” Stiles clarified.

“You feel comfortable sharing this information with strangers?” Hel asked again.

“We know who you are, we’ve known pretty much since you walked into this school,” Lydia said.

Thor laughed a little, “Dudes, you are clever.”

“Not really,” Danny said, “You just happen to really suck at hiding who you are.”

Hel stared at the teenagers in the room for a moment, and then she nodded her head. “What is the proposition that your Alpha wants to give to us?”

“Dracula is here, trying to take one of our pack members,” Jackson said, “We think you would like to fight on our side.”

Hel blinked. “Which pack member?” she asked, glancing at each one of them.

“Me,” Stiles said.

Hel blinked at Stiles a few times, and then he could feel her presence all over his body. He gritted his teeth at the urge to let his wings out, and his skin was soon covered in a fine sheen of sweat from the concentration that he was trying to pull off. In the end, it didn’t really matter, and his wings came out in the middle of the school library.

“Put them away,” Allison said, panicked a little bit. “Someone could see!”

Jackson got up and rubbed Stiles’s shoulder blades just as Hel dimmed her presence again, and Stiles could pull them back in.

“Interesting. How did one of mine end up in a werewolf pack?” Hel asked, studying the way that Jackson was being comforting to Stiles.

“Long story,” Boyd said.

“I can only imagine,” Hel said. “Why do you think that Dracula wants to go against me, claiming one of mine?”

“Dracula has already kidnapped Stiles twice,” Lydia said, “and he’s starting to stalk Stiles in his dreams.”

“Normally, I would take you myself,” Hel said, which had all the wolves immediately standing and growling, “but I am interested in hearing why your Alpha thinks it would be a good idea to instead recruit Thor and I to your side.”

“Because, little dude is one of mine, too,” Thor said with a smile. 

“And before we knew what he was, one of the Lafourche family started trying to teach him magic,” Isaac said, “So now he’s super powerful.”

“If completely untested,” Hel said, her interested in Stiles piqued. 

“So the point is,” Lydia said, “We think that Stiles could give Thor his anger back.”

Thor looked surprised. Hel looked intrigued. “We knew that Dracula was planning something, he had been too quiet for the past couple of decades,” Hel said.

“He was quiet because he gave half of his Berserkers to Russia,” Lydia said, “And now he wants them all back.”

“But Stiles here isn’t from Russia, is he?” Thor asked, a little confused. 

“No, his dad is,” Allison said. “His dad is one of your Berserkers.”

“Dude,” Thor said. “I knew there was one of mine here. And he’s the sheriff?”

“You can’t have him,” Stiles said.

“No man, I don’t work that way, I know that my little guys need to have jobs and stuff. It makes humans happy to have a purpose in life. I wouldn’t take that away from them,” Thor said, smiling.

Hel rolled her eyes. “I suppose you wouldn’t let me take Stiles, even though he is not completely human?”

“No offense, Hel,” Thor said, “But he’s like, half mine, too. He’s like, my little man,” Thor said like he was talking about a particularly adorable four year old.

“Gods,” Hel cursed. “So you want us on your side, and you have given us enough reason to join. Why do you think that Dracula is willing to go to war against your little pack for Stiles?”

“Because Dracula wants to become a god,” Stiles said.

“Well,” Hel said, “That certainly changes things, doesn’t it?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a reason I put in a warning about graphic violence. If that bothers you, perhaps you should skip down to the last thousand words or so because there's some pretty graphic violence in this chapter.

Once upon a time, in a land called Beacon Hills…

But of course it was called Beacon Hills. Because what was a beacon, other than a bright light to call others to safety from other places that were chaotic and dangerous? A beacon spoke of warmth, of a welcoming fire, of impending safety, and Beacon Hills had been that for the supernatural over many, many years. 

It was that Friday before the Winter Break that two boys were talking about how being supernatural in Beacon Hills was a lot like being in Fight Club. The same rules applied: Do not talk about it. It was the one rule that the pack strictly adhered to, and it kept everyone relatively safe and sane.

Apparently, this memo had not gotten out to the Romanians.

“Why would you say something like that, dearest Stiles?” Jackson asked him somewhat facetiously during the Talent Show, a name which normally meant that there was some sort of talent produced in a way that there should have been a show, that was being held in the high school gym that last Friday before Winter Break.

“Sarcasm,” Stiles observed, impressed with Jackson’s new personality development.

To be honest, it wasn’t an entirely bad thing that the Talent Show was being interrupted like this. There wasn’t any actual talent at Beacon Hills High, despite the aforementioned appellation given to the event happening in the gym; it was more of an excuse for kids to get in front of each other and make fools of themselves for their teachers’ amusements than for anything else. It was a sick display of power on the part of the teachers, their ability to say, “Hey, I got 240 tests graded and all of your grades put into the system, which astonishingly crashed three times forcing us to resubmit your terrible grades every single time during this week-long torture session before break, and now we’re going to make you sing and dance for our own sadistic amusement before we go and drink ourselves into oblivion over the holidays since your terrible grades have made us lose all hope for the human race.”

But our story does deal with the supernatural and the Romanian contingent not getting the Beacon Hills Fight Club style memo, of which, to recap our story from the beginning, states that one does not talk about being supernatural in Beacon Hills. 

Steve was the worst offender of Beacon Hills Fight Club style policy in the history of Beacon Hills, which was a good bit longer than most of the students at Beacon Hills High School would have known or even cared about, except in the case of one Stiles Stilinski, who seemed to care about anything and everything Wikipedia had to tell him during his long sleepless nights over the seventeen years of his existence. It also led him to verbalizing the observation of the Beacon Hills Fight Club style memo that Steve was currently ignoring with all due irreverence. 

One should mention something about the crowd that had gathered for the so-called Talent Show (just a reminder, it was a very, very bad talent show: as the band performed some sort of Celtic-y and Jamaican-ish style mishmash of non-denominational Winter Break songs after some sort of non-tap dancing by the not-really-good Dance Team after a rousing rendition of non-denominational slightly off-key newly traditional Winter Break music (styles influenced by 1970s British rock and 1990s American ska) by the choir) as it consisted of certain members of the Beacon Hills city administrative department: the mayor and some of his secretary type people and the DA and the Sheriff along with one or two of his new recruits (who were replacing the majority of his staff that had been killed in a situation that was covered by the aforementioned Beacon Hills Fight Club style memo) and the cafeteria ladies from the high school cafeteria. They had come because they were interested in showing the student body that they actually cared about them, and hopefully to show the community that they supported their largely talentless children in their artistic endeavors. 

Steve ignored this policy that had been understood by the Beacon Hills supernatural community in favor of gathering his entire Alpha pack, now consisting of fifty Alpha werewolves and various and a sundry men with machine guns strapped to their backs, into the gymnasium and having them block and guard all doors, trapping the majority of the students of Beacon Hills High School (with the exception of one Jack Smith and a child known only as Greenburg, who were currently hiding in the first floor boy’s bathroom smoking a stick of a certain THC laden substance which was illegal without the use of prescription in the state of California, which is where the city of Beacon Hills was located so shame on Greenburg and Smith, really, because they were too young for glaucoma and neither had been diagnosed with cancer) inside of said gymnasium during the finishing strains of the band’s rendition of “The Snow is Falling During the Shortest Days of the Year.” It was fortunate, if one looked back with a spirit of gratefulness that no one had decided to lyricize that particular song.

The principal, who was also covered by the Beacon Hills memo, stepped forward and at least gave everyone’s slightly nauseated eardrums a rest from the band, and she took the microphone and immediately said in a very calm and collected voice, “Students, we have some uninvited guests. If you could please line yourselves up against the walls to give the Sheriff time to escort these guests off of the school grounds, it would be greatly appreciated.

“Oh, we aren’t here to be escorted,” Steve said, and it should be noted that he still had a really creepy voice, “We’re here to collect what’s ours. We will leave peaceably as long as you hand over Stiles Stilinski, or we will kill every single person in this room. Stiles, you may now make your decision on if you would like to protect your town or not.”

Stiles swallowed, expecting there to be a mass panic in the gymnasium, but the Beacon Hills Fight Club memo had been extended to more than just the wolf pack in Beacon Hills, apparently. Yes, about three quarters of the student population immediately dispersed to the far corners of the gymnasium, but surprisingly, another quarter of the students stayed.

“God damn it,” the tuba player from the band said, “Fucking werewolves can’t leave their shit in the forest,” and then that child’s body changed shape from a slightly overfed looking marshmallow to a tall and thin creature with spotted skin and a tail that was swishing in agitation, whiskers sprouting from his formerly chubby cheeks and long thin claws growing from his fingertips.

Half of the choir snarled, withdrawing swords from some unknown place, and their hair was pushed behind ears that were pointed at the edges. Their battle mode apparently included extremely bejeweled eyes, and it then didn’t take a genius to figure out that half of the choir was made of elves. They didn’t have a lot to say, but they really didn’t have to because they were twirling their swords in what could be read as a very menacing manner.

“Stiles is ours,” one of the art students said, her black clothing not hiding the fact that she now held balls of flame in her hands, and that three of her friends all dressed in black were holding the same type of weapons, “He and his father have kept attention from us all in many different ways. You will have to fight us for him.”

This was apparently the sign for the Romanian pack to wolf out, or as in the case of the men with the guns, to pull their guns off their backs and aim them at random students.

Stiles’s own pack wolfed out in response, and Stiles gave in to the urge to let the wings sprout from his back. Derek, who was one of the recruits that the Sheriff had brought along with him, wolfed out and immediately found his way to Stiles’s side.

A few of the teachers gasped as a hammer appeared in Mr. Odinsson’s hand. His hair flew free, and he took his shirt off before he appeared next to his friend, Hel, otherwise known as Principal Lokisdottir, and her teeth grew into fangs and her fingers grew into claws. “You have brought this on yourself, Stephanus, sworn to Dracula.”

“Then I should be here for the fight, should I not?” Dracula appeared in a swirl of smoke, long incisors extended already.

“Really, really should have read the memo,” Stiles said to Jackson, who howled next to him.

“Let’s dance,” the sheriff said, sneering at the wolves standing in front of him.

The fight happened as most fights do: it was quick and bloody and over within a matter of minutes. Well, they were long minutes. 

The elves cornered six werewolves, and the witches took out four men with machine guns. The cat-type person sat licking his bloodied claws over the bodies of a werewolf and a man. Hel and Thor each fought Dracula and Steve on their own, and it should be mentioned that because Stiles had said to Thor, “Hey Thor, maybe you should be able to access your anger again,” earlier that week and in the style of unlimited potential towards magic, that magic had granted Thor access to his former battle rage, and Thor was holding his own against Steve, if ‘holding his own’ was a euphemism for ‘kicking Steve’s little puppy behind into the next reality.’

Stiles himself felt his own rage coming onto him during the battle. This was supposed to be his time, his Junior Year of High School’s not-so-very-much Talent Show before Winter Break, and these freaking Romanian supernatural creatures were just ruining his chance to make sarcastic comments about the non-talent of his peers. He was tired of them just ruining things for him, things that he considered necessary like sleep and peace of mind and a childhood without torture and rape and watching the rape and torture and murder of his mother, and then coming back to scar his face with molten gold just because they thought that was a good time.

All that was nothing but inspiration to fight until he saw one of the werewolves attacking Derek. It bit into Derek’s shoulder as Derek raked his claws against his attacker’s face, and then Stiles saw Derek fall next to him.

Stiles lost control.

Stiles could feel his hand pushing its way through the breast bone of one werewolf as he wrapped his fingers around the creature’s heart and pulled it out, watched his other hand rip the tongue out of another creature nearest to him and pull it out before he ripped its eyeballs out. He kicked back the knee cap of another one, jerking its head to the side until he felt the satisfying snap of its neck, reaching for the next creature and ripping its ear off before he ripped its esophagus out so he could hear the satisfying gurgle of its body gasping for air, ripped the gun out of another man’s hand so that he could smash it through his skull, scattering grey matter around his body, grabbed the body of one werewolf so that he could fly it to the top of the gym and drop him on another human’s body, and then dive bombed them both so that he could smash their heads together into a sickening paste of brain and skin and bone.

He didn’t feel Thor’s arms wrapping around him, didn’t hear Hel commanding him to stop until he felt Derek’s hands on his face, Derek’s eyes looking into his as he said his name over and over again. “Stiles, baby, Stiles, I’m here, it’s okay baby, I’m okay, I’m here…” Derek said, and then Stiles relaxed as Derek started kissing him.

Stiles slowly came back to himself, realizing that he, Derek, Hel, and Thor were being sheltered by the wings of Alexander and the GITS as Derek worked on bringing Stiles out of his Berserk state. Stiles gasped for air, feeling the panic replacing adrenaline, and Derek called for Stiles’s dad, who had his anxiety medication in his pocket. They gave Stiles a pill, and as the numbness worked its way through Stiles’s nervous system, Stiles looked out to see that all of the supernatural creatures in his high school were now regarding each other and him with slightly worried stares. 

The other not-so-very-much supernatural kids were running out of the newly opened gymnasium doors, getting away from the smells and the sights of death.

“First rule of Fight Club,” Stiles said, and he saw a few of the other kids smiling at him before he passed out.

Stiles woke, many hours later, in his bed, alone. He could hear the television downstairs, and the rustling of teenagers that were trying to be quiet. The quarter moon shone through his window, open to the cold temperatures of December. He looked up, groggy, his mouth sour with the taste of medicine, and he walked to the bathroom where he brushed his teeth and went pee.

He walked downstairs to find his pack watching a movie on his couch, and he sat between Derek and Jackson, who immediately made room for him between them.

“What are we watching?” Stiles asked, not really wanting to talk about what had happened at the school earlier.

“Lydia insisted on The Notebook,” Jackson whispered to him. He held up Derek’s phone, which was showing Ninja Assassin on the screen without the volume. It wasn’t like it was a movie that required dialogue, anyway.

“Good movie,” Stiles said, watching the tiny screen while Lydia, Erica, Allison, and Scott were glued to the television. He curled up into Derek’s side, and felt comforted when Derek wrapped his arm around his shoulders with perfect acceptance. 

When the movie(s) were over, the pack hugged each other good evening and went off in couples and threes. Derek stayed behind with the excuse of assisting Stiles with cleaning, but a few knowing smirks quickly let Stiles know that no one was fooled.

“Where’s my dad?” Stiles asked Derek.

Derek cleared his throat. “Well, you know how Dracula was basically holding him as a slave?”

“Yeah?” Stiles could feel his heart sinking.

“Thor… convinced him to let go of all of the Berserkers Legacy of Oaths, so now your dad can become a United States Citizen,” Derek said, a little uncomfortably.

“Oh, how is that a bad thing?” Stiles asked.

“The CIA immediately showed up and… offered him employment, which they strongly urged him to take in order to expedite his citizenship papers. He’s filling out paperwork at the Sheriff’s department,” Derek said.

Stiles stared at Derek for a while. “Oh.”

“It’s a good thing, Stiles,” Derek said. “It’s really a good thing.”

Stiles nodded his head. 

“Hey, he’s going to be here to see you graduate from high school, and he’s going to be there for your college…”

Stiles pushed himself into Derek’s arms. “I’m happy, I really am,” Stiles said, “I just know that dad’s probably not thrilled with working for the government again.”

“Well, now we have to worry about a new sheriff,” Derek said. 

“Oh God, I’m going to hate seeing anyone trying to actually run for Sheriff of Beacon Hills,” Stiles mumbled into Derek’s shoulder.

“It should be an interesting campaign. At least there’s a lot of potential for slogans and promises to voters,” Derek shrugged.

“Yeah,” Stiles laughed a little, “Like, ‘I promise to not let the high school get attacked by a pack of werewolves, unlike the last sheriff.’”

“’I promise not to let a crazy geriatric hunter or an ancient Viking goddess become a principal at a school while I’m in charge,’” Derek suggested.

“That’s terrible,” Stiles said. “How in the world did there get to be so many supernatural things in Beacon Hills?” 

Derek shrugged. “This place has a good vibe, I guess.”

“Did you just go hippie on me?” Stiles asked, shoving Derek’s shoulder a little.

“It’s never boring here,” Derek smirked. “Sometimes you have to go hippie in order to stay sane.”

“Derek,” Stiles looked up into his boyfriend’s face, “Are you scared of me?”

“No,” Derek said, kissing Stiles’s forehead. “I know you’ll never hurt me. I trust you.”

Stiles thought about Derek’s relationships, his past relationship with Kate, his complete and utter lack of trusting Stiles in the past, and he figured that Derek was damn strong to be able to take a chance to trust someone again. He felt honored that Derek had decided to try with him. “Thank you.”

“I can definitely see why control is so stressed in your family though,” Derek said. “That was the most insane thing I think I’ve ever seen.”

“What was?” Stiles asked, moving so that his lips were brushing Derek’s neck as he talked.

“You’re an amazing fighter, Stiles,” Derek said, leaning into Stiles’s touch. “You were quicker than I am, and a lot more ruthless. I don’t ever want to have to see you that way again.”

“That sounds good to me,” Stiles agreed, as he kissed along Derek’s neck.

“You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a mate,” Derek said, pushing Stiles away slightly so that he could look into his eyes. “You won’t leave me, will you? You’ll protect me and my pack, and let us protect you, won’t you?”

“I’m yours,” Stiles declared, a little confused, “Why would I leave you? Why wouldn’t I protect you?”

Derek had been worried only a little, but Stiles’s declaration wrote peace on his face. “Stiles,” Derek sighed, pulling him in closer for a kiss, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Der,” Stiles said, letting Derek’s kiss finish the conversation for them. They made their way upstairs, and kept themselves busy getting drunk on the feel of each other’s skin and breath until the sun rose the next morning, letting in a new day through Stiles’s open window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's the last chapter. I'm sorry about the strangeness of it, but I was in a mood all day at work (short work day, 9 hours, starting at 6am, ugh ) and I came home from it being a tad bit silly. I think that it turned out okay, though...
> 
> Thanks to everyone for giving my story a chance! Thanks to terrafirmaspower (check her out on Tumblr) for offering to Beta for me, even though I was never patient enough to get the story to you before I published it! Thanks to min7girl (check her out on LiveJournal) for always supporting me, no matter what I do, and for being the best unnie in the entire world! Thank you to Ms. V Choi, because you know why. Thanks to my husband for putting up with dirty laundry occasionally while I lock myself in the garage to get away and write. And thanks to Jeff Davis, for letting us all play with his characters with such a graceful generosity, and for not complaining about any of us taking such liberties with his brain children.


End file.
